Odd Terrarium

This cel animation project was made for social media, with the intent to explore design and warping animations.

  • Cel Animation, Illustration

  • Photoshop, After Effects

PROCESS

Since Odd Terrarium was meant for social media I knew I wanted it to be a loop. With the hopes that this would invite viewers to watch the animation multiple times; this ended up being my most successful post to date so this instinct was rewarded. 

I broke the animation into three seamless shots and got to work.

Design and Storyboard

When designing, I used a textured brush to bring interest to simple shapes and help convey a cartoon or hand drawn feel. A triadic color palette using the primary colors makes the piece feel vibrant, lively, and even a bit childish. While using similar values in the core three colors, and using off-white and off-black which lean towards the yellow, keep it cohesive and give it some balance.

Keyframes

I split keyframes into two passes. First, the resting positions, the terrarium will warp from one shape and position to another. However, if I simply animated the movement between it wouldn’t feel very lively, and it wouldn’t be fun to animate. So, the second pass of keyframes focused on adding unexpected or interesting anticipation or passing poses. What if instead of it simply flattening, it stretches and then wobbles into a flat shape?

1st Keyframes are marked as red, 2nd keyframes as orange, and in-betweens as purple.

Finishing Touches

Then the in-betweens, where I ironed out the timing and spacing. I brought them into After Effects, where I composited them together, added the background, music, and rendered it out in different formats for different sites.