Process of a Looping Animation: Record Player
Animation has always fascinated me. But never having animated using vector graphics before, I wanted to challenge myself to create a looping animation using Adobe Illustrator and After Effects. I wanted it to look smooth and very much created in vector, in a style that could be in a children's or teen's TV show. For this, I decided to create a spinning record player.
Sketching & Storyboarding
Once the concept of a record player had been decided on, I began with some storyboard sketches. They didn't need to be super detailed, just enough so that I had some idea of the motion I wanted to create. The needle would move over to the record, the record would spin for a bit, and then the needle would move back, all while the leaves drifted in the wind. A fairly simple concept on the surface, but it had a lot of individual moving parts.
In addition, I sketched out all of the assets I would need. These were also kept pretty simple, but detailed enough that I would know what to make.
Vector Assets
The assets for the animation were all created in Adobe Illustrator. They came together fairly quickly after my sketching. The lines were thick, and the colors and shading were smooth and solid, to better lend to the idea of a vector animation. Some of the assets ended up changing after my initial animation draft, but these were the basic start to them.
Animation Draft
The first draft of the animation was mostly just to get some movement going, and see if all my assets would work properly. After some tests and feedback, I separated more layers of the record, so I could animate the inner lines, colored label, and highlight all separately.
In addition, based on other feedback, I also changed the speed of the record so it eased into and out of spinning, to help give it a more realistic look.
The Final Result
After some more adjustments, feedback, and more adjustments, the final animation was complete.
The animation itself is about 8 seconds long, but was carefully created to run in a loop, so the 8 second segment can be connected and looped indefinitely.
After creating this looped animation, I now feel much more confident animating using vector assets in Adobe After Effects, especially working in this particular animated-TV-show style of illustration. It was a challenging process, but ultimately a successful one.
To find more of my work, follow me on Instagram @winterstarart.
