My wife and I like to take our cats outside on leashes for their daily “enrichment” time. The last time I took the cats outside, I saw something in my neighbors yard that sparked joy:
A scooter (Moped? We’ll call it a scooter).
I loved the pop of color on the seat, the curve formed by the white cradle under it, and the overall profile. I logged it in my mind and in my phone for a later drawing session.
The Drawings
With an 03 micron, ohuhu markers, and a dream, I looked at the picture quickly and then started to create my own version. I used the photo’s overall silhouette and color scheme as a base to start building something new.
The Motion
After drawing the images above, I wanted to play with some animation. This time around, I wasn’t as interested in the side profile. Instead I wanted to explore the scooter from the front; investigating the S-like motion of a steering scooter. I moved into “rough animator” on my ipad, building the new shape based on some quick perspective references from Pinterest and my previous drawing.
To continue this little experiment, I sought to combine the hand-drawn elements of the first scooter drawing with the new rough animation. Instead of using After Effects to simulate those qualities, I figured I could just use the original materials: An 03 Micron and ohuhu markers. I ended up making two versions, one with the original color scheme and one that had a gradient detail printed out with the rough lines.
Let’s go step by step here:
Softwares used: After Effects, Photoshop, Rough Animator.
Bring the rough into After Effects and reduce the opacity. Render the rough animation as an image sequence, and lay that sequence out onto a contact sheet in photoshop (Open Photoshop, don’t create a new document just yet>File>Automate>Contact Sheet II>browse>select image sequence from your folder).
Rough animation with the gradient addition applied Fill your very cheap and objectively bad epson printer with 60lbs drawing paper, ensuring you can draw directly onto the rough with ink and marker.
Draw your micron lines over each rough printed drawing, all while forgetting to drink water.
Fill drawings in with markers, one color layer at a time.
Scan in drawings at 600 DPI and remember to drink water later.
Re-scan in the drawings because you found a lot of mistakes.
Bring scans into After Effects. Attach scan onto a Null Object, using hold frames to move the scan through the canvas at 8 frames per second. Clean up weird things that feel distracting to the motion.
Play with color correction, hue and saturation, contrast, and paper textures to amp up the hand-drawn elements you’ve created. Add some road-esque animated lines to emphasize the forward motion of the scooter.
Triumphantly render and drink water.
Thanks for reading about my rootin’, my tootin’, and my scootin’. Looks like my cats’ enrichment time enhanced my enrichment time this time around.
Your Obligatory Cat Photo
Inspiring as always
Came out great!