current outcome
This is one of the hardest shots of the animation made by me, as it’s a mixture of anatomical drawing, character performance and visual effects. Here is how I approach to the task
Primarily, I produced a layout sheet with a good amount of detail and sufficient breakdowns and keyframes to ensure the concept’s achievability.
Here, I used simple geometric shapes to test out how to make a solid object vanish like a smoke. I am more satisfied with the beginning part, as the smoke gradually rises and the object breaks down, but I think the final finish is too sudden and uniform, and I believe a more sectional varnish may be more visually pleasing
Then I had the second attempt, mainly focus on the change in varnish section, which indeed brought a stronger finish with rhythmic variants in pacing. However the beginning was rather too short, so for the actual outcome I aim to fuse the two.
Start with rough body only to ensure the anatomical structure is correct, before adding any details or smokes
After that, in-between can be given to the junior animator, and hair can be added and tested while waiting, ensures efficiency.
Eventually, the rough is made, note some in-betweens are already being drawn in clean, pixel lines when possible, to avoid time waste on inbetweening the rough, then trace it again.