Animated Monochrome Melon-choly

Client

Designs Made EC

Project type

2D Animation/Illustration
Transmedia Campaign

PROJECT Timeline

One Week - March 15, 2023 - March 22nd, 2023

programs & Methods

Scripting
Storyboarding

_{ABOUT THE PROJECT}
BACKGROUND
Designs Made EC ran a transmedia marketing campaign that promotes their custom watercolor photo edits to family-oriented individuals that enjoy shopping online on sales platforms like Etsy. The animated video is meant to promote their services in an engaging way that encourages users to submit encouragement to the main character, Melonie, on the campaign website.
MY WORK
For this project, I handled all aspects of the project. This included scriptwriting, storyboarding, illustrating, animating, sound designing, and voice acting. See my process below.
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My Creation Journey

It all begins with an idea.

When I was given the opportunity to create a video for the Designs Made EC campaign, I wanted to do something that showcased my abilities in motion media, graphic design, and illustration. I decided an animation in Adobe After Effects would be a perfect opportunity to showcase my skills.

As we were asked to create a story conflict for our campaign, I already had in mind what the video would be about - the struggle for Melonie to keep her and Strawpuppy's world from falling victim to Monochrome Melancholy, which is an antagonist that sucks out the color from their colorful world. This antagonist is meant to represent a lack of creativity and vibrance that sucks the life out of what a creative, Melonie, gives out to the world. Strawpuppy is meant to represent inspiration and creativity blossoming once more.
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Art can mean a thousand words.

Before animating, I needed to have my story laid out with a script, tone indicators, and action all clearly conveyed. I did this by writing a four-column script for the animation. See the script below.

Before the movement begins.

After the script was completed, it was time to storyboard how the animation would play out. I used a drawing tablet to sketch out each shot of the animation, being sure to include the type of shot, movement, and any action indicators.

Illustrating my ideas.

After the storyboard was completed, it was time to illustrate the characters. The characters were made in Illustrator with different pieces for each part of them that required animation. Each piece was overlayed with a paint texture in photoshop and transferred to AfterEffects for animation.

The backgrounds and easel were created using a free-to-use assets from sketchfab. These pieces were edited in Photoshop to have different colors and painting textures. Attributions:

Backgrounds are derivative of:
Low Poly Flying Island - Model by Mohamed Fsili
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/low-poly-flying-island-49c22c7d4f3249688a000fc526b84a76
Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International

Easel is derivative of:
Easel - Model by Olivercharlton11
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/easel-60f6b110542d494eb1552add0b69e407
Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International

Bringing my ideas to life with movement.

It was finally time to animate the illustrations based on the script and storyboard. In AfterEffects, the hair was animated using the Wave Warp effect pinned to the top of Melonie's head. Pieces of Melonie's and Strawpuppy's body were manipulated for animation using the transform tool.

Lighting effects were used to enhance the overall appearance of the scene. Elements in the background of the scene, such as trees and clouds, were lightly animated using the mesh warp tool. The Monochrome Melancholy was created using a mask that desaturated the area it affected.

Drumroll, please...

Once the animation was complete, I was able to add music and record my voiceover for it. I edited everything together in Adobe Premiere and exported it to be uploaded on YouTube. See the final result below!

See Full Transmedia Campaign

2D ANIMATION/ILLUSTRATION
^{Monochrome Melon-Choly}

_{ABOUT THE PROJECT}

BACKGROUND

MY WORK