I Finished my Rectangle Show Bumper. Here’s the Rest of the Process…

After finishing the figure on all the frames, which took many hours, a steady hand, and lots of dark violet paint, the next part of the process would begin: the backgrounds! I know I mentioned that part of the process briefly in my last entry, but here’s some more detail on that specifically.

Some backgrounds took longer that others, one pattern in particular taking me (I kid you not,) 45 minutes per frame! Whew… What a lot of labor for something that will only be seen for an eighth of a second. But it was necessary labor, and for what it’s worth, I actually had a lot of fun doing it.

Anyway, the most challenging part of this process was trying to get the paint as close to the edges as possible without going over. (If I accidentally dragged my brush into an area that was already painted, I’d run the risk of the colors bleeding into each other.) So, as you can imagine, I really needed to keep my hand steady. (Accidents can happen, though, so I still kept a wad of paper towels on hand… just in case!)

When I finished all my frames (there were 42 total,) I did what I usually do when I finish a major project—I celebrate! In this case, I blasted Flashdance, What a Feeling, by Irene Cara as I put the final brushstrokes on. It’s a kind of ceremony, you might say…

So I ended that part of the process feeling very proud of myself, but there was still a little more to be done…

The next day, I scanned all the frames into my computer and sequenced them in Adobe After Effects. In order to add sound effects, I imported the After Effects sequence into Adobe Premiere. (It has certain sound mixing capabilities that After Effects doesn’t have.) I’m very proud of the result, but I can’t make the final render yet because I still don’t have my computer. (It’s a long story, and probably best not to get into too much detail…) Once I have it, I can render it, so that’s something to look forward to! :D

The green bars at the bottom are all the sound effects I layered in. A bike chain, a bike bell, a foot stomp (when he dismounts,) and a male voice going “woohoo!!”

So that’s it for now! Are you excited to watch the animation once it goes live? Would you ever consider doing something like this yourself? Sound off in the comments! And if you want more content such as this, please be sure to sign up for my email newsletter. Thanks.

Talk soon!