Illustration and Visual Narrative - Final Project: Animatic Illustrations

26/11/2025 - 04/01/2026 (Week 10 - Week 14)

Cher Pei Ying (0389055)

Illustration and Visual Narrative

Final Project: Animatic Illustrations

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Process Work

    1.1 Sketches

    1.2 Line Art

    1.3 Color

    1.4 Animation

2. Documentation

    2.1 Description

    2.2 Story board

3. Reflection

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1. PROCESS WORK

1.1 Sketches

The script I chose to do:

"If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough." – Oprah Winfrey

These are my sketches:

Figure 1.1.1 Idea sketch

Figure 1.1.2 Sketches

1.2 Line Art

After getting approval from my lecturer, I moved on into creating the line art in Adobe Illustrator using the pen tool. I changed all the brush strokes to artistic calligraphy 3pt round to make the strokes have a round edge.

Scene 1: 

                             Figure 1.2.1 Scene 1 Line Art                         Figure 1.2.2 Scene 1 Final Line Art

Scene 2:

Figure 1.2.3 Scene 2 Final Line Art

Scene 3:

Figure 1.2.4 Scene 3 Final Line Art

Scene 4:

Figure 1.2.5 Scene 4 Final Line Art

Scene 5:

Figure 1.2.6 Scene 5 Final Line Art

Scene 6:

Figure 1.2.7 Scene 6 Final Line Art

Scene 7:

Figure 1.2.8 Scene 7 Final Line Art

1.3 Color

I used the live paint tool to fill in colors after adding new layer of a duplicate of the line art layer. Then I added two more layers to create highlights and shadows.

Scene 1:

Figure 1.3.1 Scene 1 Color

Figure 1.3.2 Scene 1 Shadows and Highlights

Scene 2:

I copy pasted the color layers from scene 1 into scene 2 and erased the parts that were overlapping. Then continued to fill in colors for the boy and adding highlights and shadows.

Figure 1.3.3 Scene 2 Adjustments

Figure 1.3.4 Scene 2 Color

For the highlights on the hair, I used the paintbrush tool to draw out some strokes.

Figure 1.3.5 Scene 2 Hair highlights

Figure 1.3.6 Scene 2 Shadows and Highlights

Scene 3:

Figure 1.3.7 Scene 3 Copy pasting color

Figure 1.3.8 Scene 3 Color

Figure 1.3.9 Scene 3 Shadow and Highlights

Scene 4:

Figure 1.3.10 Scene 4 Color

Figure 1.3.11 Scene 4 Shadows and Highlights

Scene 5:

Figure 1.3.12 Scene 5 Color

For the car, I used the brush tool to draw out the shadow and highlights as it is easier than using the pen tool because the car is small in size.

Figure 1.3.13 Scene 5 Car Shadows and Highlights

Figure 1.3.14 Scene 5 Shadows and Highlights

Scene 6:

Figure 1.3.15 Scene 6 Color

Figure 1.3.15 Scene 6 Shadows and Highlights

Scene 7:

I took a screenshot of scene 6 to be a reference for the color filling in scene 7.

Figure 1.3.16 Scene 7 Remote color reference

Figure 1.3.17 Scene 7 Color

Figure 1.3.18 Scene 7 Shadows and Highlights

After completing all the color fills, I added a background for each scene. The colors represent emotions that I want to express to the audience. For scene 1 and scene 2, I chose to use a light orange color for the background to show that the boy is happy.

Figure 1.3.19 Scene 1 Final        Figure 1.3.20 Scene 2 Final

For scene 3, the background is pink because the boy is surrounded by love from his family and friends.

Figure 1.3.21 Scene 3 Final

Scene 4 will have a greyish blue to flush out the pink in the previous scene because the other boy is feeling sad, that continues to scene 5 and will be fully filled in scene 6.

   

                              Figure 1.3.22 Scene 4 Final                  Figure 1.3.23 Scene 5 Final 

Figure 1.3.24 Scene 6 Final

The last scene will be a white to blue gradient.

Figure 1.3.25 Scene 7 Final

1.4 Animation

First of all, I converted all the Adobe Illustrator files into Adobe Photoshop with separated layers of artwork and background.

Figure 1.4.1 Scene 1 car artwork

Figure 1.4.2 Scene 1 background

Then I compiled all the individual files into one Adobe Photoshop file.

Figure 1.4.3 Compiling in Adobe Photoshop

I imported this file into Adobe After Effects and started animating. I first animated all the artwork objects one by one.

Figure 1.4.4 Artwork objects animation

Then I animated the backgrounds to make some fade into each other.

Figure 1.4.5 Background animation

I created narration audio from the website Noiz, then downloaded and imported them into my workspace.

Figure 1.4.6 Adding audio

Lastly is to add captions.

Figure 1.4.7 Adding captions

Before rendering, I selected all the keyframes and applied easy ease.

Figure 1.4.8 Keyframes

Figure 1.4.9 Applying easy ease

Here is the final animated video:

Figure 1.4.10 Final Animation Illustration

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2. DOCUMENTATION

2.1 Description

For this story, I choose to compare two boys: Bryan who owns a normal car toy and Shawn that has a RC car. Even though Bryan’s car toy it is not expensive and not the best car toy in the world, he has a big heart and appreciates small things in life, including the love he has from his close ones. He looks at what he has in life and appreciates them, therefore having a lot in life than other people because they don’t notice them. Although Shawn owns an expensive RC car, he is alone and has no one to play with him. He envies what Bryan has, which is love and company from his family and friends.

2.2 Story board

Scene 1: Bryan’s car toy moving into the frame. It is not a expensive toy, just a normal one.

Scene 2: Bryan plays with his car toy happily, the background is light orange to express joy.

Scene 3: Bryan appreciates his car toy, he looks at what he has in life, and by that he has more, which is the love from his family and friends. The background then turns into pink to express love.

Scene 4: Bryan spots someone, it is Shawn. He background starts to flush with blue color to express sadness.

Scene 5: Shawn looks at Bryan and his family and friends with envy, because he has no friends, even though he owns an expensive RC car.

Scene 6: Shawn then looks at his RC car remote controller with dislike. 

Scene 7: Shawn’s RC car is expensive, but he doesn’t appreciate what he has.

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3. REFLECTION

This task was quite challenging as I had to work with many scenes, it took me a lot of time to complete the coloring, especially for the shadows and highlights. I improved in creating line art and organizing the layers, which is crucial as it eased my progression throughout the work.

The most challenging part of this task was to convert my Adobe Illustrator file to Adobe After Effects for animation. I did not check beforehand on how to correctly do this, so it was a trial and error progress for me. I had to redo and adjust the files repeatedly by searching for tutorials online. I wasted a lot of time on that and I will learn from this experience and avoid it in future tasks.

Luckily the animation process went well as I already had a clear idea on what I wanted to do, I just had to execute it correctly in Adobe After Effects. It was overall a fun task and I am happy of my outcome.

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