Animation Jam idea – To do a short 2D animatic/animation of Zephyr dragon or a 3D animation using the dragon rig I downloaded. I ended up going with the short 2D animation of Zephyr flying through a storm and either breathing fire or lightening after being struck by multiple lightening bolts to power up.
I finalised Zephyr’s character design sheet and did a storyboard to experiment with what I wanted to happen in the animation. I did Zephyrs’ design more sleek and with a blue palette linking to his electric/lightening abilities. I decided to veer away from traditional dragon wings with bat like membrane and go for more bird wing/feathered membrane although i like both wing types. His eye colour was between gold and blue but i thought the blue would be too much so stuck with gold to make it stand out, (I tried to replicate traditional dragon irises with the unique patterns of similar hued colours). I also did variations on his pupils but went with something smiliar to Smaug’s pupil in The Hobbit as he’s one of my favourite fictional dragons and I love his overall design and i think the pupil was a great tough to give the whole otherworldly and ancient dragon theme.
For the animation I used Sketchbook Flipbook animaition, I used image saturation on the scene where he powers up with the lightening and unleashes an electric blast to look as though he is glowing and absorbing the lightening from the storm into his body.
I added the audio of the lightening/storm and roar to the animation using Adobe Premier Pro. I had fun using it as it was easy to add then edit the animtion and audio files and it was my first time editing an animation or adding audio to 2D. I’m pretty happy with the outcome of my animation JAM.
To improve I would have made my animation longer and added Zephyr doing a flip/roll in the air and make the animation smoother.
Audio/sounds used and reference/sites:
lightening crack & thunder mp3
Animation JAM file on google drive:
Animation JAM Zephyr official audio & animation MP4
Go to the file titled Animation JAM Zephyr official audio & animation, just to avoid confusion as the file next ot it is titled Zephyr animatic and the image looks similar.
BFoxy Animations 