A Rare Day Out

Year: 2020

Personal challenge: I had generously been given an iMac to look after during lockdown. It had the full Adobe CS package on it! Originally I had an idea of drawing a BMX inspired image and that's where I got the idea of making an illustrated BMX animation in After Effects.

At the time I was building a D.I.Y skatepark and based it around that. During the early stages, I intended to have a song playing over it but by reflecting on it, I noticed I could create an original piece of work by recreating the sounds myself. No downloads or images from the internet. All my own designs.

How I did it: The first step was drawing up a rough storyboard. Once I had a solid plan, I started on a sketch sheet by tracing videos on my iPhone. When trying to animate, a big problem was the wheels changing shape with every different character/sketch. I resolved the issue by removing the wheels on the original drawings and simply making a single wheel set that rolls along with the changing characters. Because of this, I could precisely place the bike and rotate it on an anchor point.2 months down the line I was almost finished but it had no audio. At that point I had created everything with no outside resources or downloads from the internet and I noticed that's how it should be. Fully original.

I lastly downloaded a microphone app on my iPhone and got to recording sounds. I used odd items like coins hitting a tin for the basketball net, to get the desired noises. Making the noises was definitely a pivotal point and it made the final product that bit better.

I am very proud of this project as making a truly original piece brought a whole new aspect to graphics for me.