 The opening
animation for Aka-Kon lasted less than a minute, but it took weeks to create.
If you wonder why you see so many names on the credits for a cartoon, ask
Robin Perkins, who did much of the animation on the short film shown at
the convention. A remarkable amount of work is needed to create the illusion
of movement on screen, and Perkins took a few minutes to guide fans through
that procedure. By the way, Perkins picked up most of her techniques from
studying at the Sheraton Animation School. |
 "She's a fun
character to draw but there are too many little metal pieces on her," Perkins
said about the Aka-Chan mascot who was the subject of the opening animation.
So, as happens in most films, the original character design was simplified
to make her easier to draw for each frame of animation. One subtle item
takes even more time: note that the character isn't painted in flat colors,
but shaded to show the contours of her body and wings. That creates a convincing
three-dimensional effect, but it's hard to get the shading just right from
frame to frame. And the character's proportions have to stay the same for
the entire film. Perkins said she had to draw Aka-Chan again and again
from every possible angle before she was ready to create the key frames
for the animation, and then fill in with the inbetween frames which give
the impression of movement. |
 As with most
animation, the Aka-Chan animation began with a (frequently changed) storyboard
that laid out the structure of the film. After that was completed, Perkins
laid out the individual frames of the animation. Then another person had
to clean up Perkins' pencil work on the frames, which means that second
artist has to decide which if the pencil lines belong in the frames and
which should be erased. That's not always easy: "The hair on Aka made a
lot of cleanup artists cry," she said. Then the frames are colored, then
sent to a camera operator who assembles them into an animated sequence.
That doesn't finish the process, because the film then has to be edited
and the soundtrack added. For the brief Aka-Chan film, around one month's
work was needed. |
