“Denatural” Animation
Concept:
Back in 2020, I created some digital art in the editor within Geometry Dash using right angles to create a highly geometric abstraction of a tree. I wanted to reimagine that same concept, seeing how I could build off of it and also adapt it into an animated format.
My efforts to elevate the original design were adding a lot of subtle detail, like the drawn texture, the roughened edges, and the slight tilt to the right. The original art had several color schemes for different times of day, so I expanded on that to also include rain, clouds, and both the moon and sun.
This piece is titled, “Denatural,” referencing the unnatural depiction of a natural thing. I leaned into those juxtaposed aesthetics, making it look drawn yet sharply angled, rough yet pixelated, flowing yet oscillating.
Jobs:
Ideation
Creative Direction
Animation
Motion Design
Visual Design
Editing
Optimization
Revision
Process:
I started this piece by looking at my reference art from 2020, adding details and building out a more refined composition that better reflects my style.
My original piece, made in Geometry Dash, and the versions built out for this animation, made in Illustrator.
Different elements were separated into different layers based on which groupings I wanted to be able to manipulate in the animation. This required an extensive amount of planning ahead of time.
One of my pages of notes for this animation, including the early concepting of the motion, and the calculation of the “vertical” motion that has a ~3° angle, so that a distance moved horizontally could be decomposed into the vertical movement based on the change in both the X and Y position.
I wanted to approach this project with as much flexibility as possible, so that I can land on something successful with the concept instead of something exactly as planned. As a personal project I wanted to prioritize exploration, particularly with textures, compounding effects, and the upper limits of mattes.
A lot of my later process was centered around this exploration, trying an effect and seeing what it does to the composition, allowing myself to find new means to reinforce the theme of nature in an unnatural presentation.
The texture on the subject was achieved by a simulation effect meant to be rainfall, but I repurposed this with some manipulation to get a hand-colored look. Instances of effects used in a way they were not labeled to can be found throughout the project, they made this a fruitful exercise of lateral thinking.
The tree animation features a hand-colored look, achieved by using a rainfall effect but making the raindrops background color and blended with the colors of the subject.
Created using Adobe After Effects, Adobe Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and Adobe Media Encoder.