GIF Animation

In an artists career, one is told to also vary in the things they create, and expand into a wide variety of mediums and programs to create such pieces. In my grade twelve Media Art’s classroom, I got the chance to not only learn about animation, but got to plan, design and create my own animation. I decided that, out of the two options of animations to create, which were cinemagraphs and GIF’s, that I wanted to create a GIF. What a GIF is, is a series of images placed together side by side in frames. This sequences of frames plays a certain number of times or endlessly, in a process called looping. Since I feel that drawing on a tablet is a skill I have, I decided to hand draw my GIF.

When deciding what to create my GIF of, was very challenging. I had to decide on something that I was able to draw somewhat easily, as I would have to draw it in numerous frames and shots, and something that, overall, in captured my theme that I’ve created in the semester in my artwork. Well in the planning stage, I happened to find a unique GIF with a Christmas theme; this GIF became the main inspiration for my own animation creation.  It was a reindeer standing in the snow, and all of a sudden a very large Santa jumps into the picture, on to its back; at this time the reindeer starts transforming and turns into a large beast and robotic looking monster of a deer, with flames and neon colours everywhere. To view this GIF, go to the GIF page found under Inspiration. I wanted to capture the country loving side in my self, and what better way to do then then to have a cow with a cowboy. My GIF itself is very detailed and interesting. In the beginning, it starts as a normal cow, standing in a field watching a tumble weed go by. Once the tumbleweed goes by, out of the top corner, two cowboy boots fly in and a mean looking cowboy jumps on him, rocking the overalls. Once this happens, this is where the GIF gets very creative and depicts my style. The cow itself starts transforming; growing, changing colours and even changing into a monster looking cow with almost robotic features. There is neon colours in all sorts of places, like in the waved background that changes colours behind the cow, and any other parts where I could place them. The overall GIF itself captured my style. It was very unique in its overall look, and captures my style by incorporating my love of the country and mostly my edgy theme. By placing and filling things with the neon colouring, and using unique aspects of me in the GIF itself, really helps tie the whole piece together. Although it turned out very well, I did want to do more to the piece; but as they say, time is thy enemy, and in my case it was. If i had more time I wanted to make an extravagant background full of outrageous things in it. Overall though, I am very happy with my final piece.