Fish fry: The point of this project was to come up with an idea for an animation using a storyboard and then take the storyboard, create the elements in Adobe Illustrator and then us Adobe After Effects to create an animation. I decided to create an animation based off of my fish sticker that I had come up with previously.

The storyboard that I came up with was very basic, just two fish coming together and the "bad boy" fish being told they can't blow bubbles where they are. The story itself really expanded out from this basic storyboard with much more being added to it.

This was my first Illustrator file that I made based off of the storyboard sketch. Two different colored fish and just some little things added to the background. I had not added in the text bubbles yet, just the basics.

The second Illustrator sketch added in the basic text bubbles that were in the original storyboard. This is the file I went with to make my first animation, since it had everything in it that I needed. You can see the video below.

The first animation was a little rough to say the least but, it was a good place to start. It had some basic movements applied to the items in the background, the fins and the bubbles. The fish felt like they were missing something however the more I went over it. I was told by peers to put a drift or a slow wiggle on the fish themselves so they bounced up and down while they were staying put and swimming. I was also told to change up the items in the background so they weren't just copies of each other in different colors. Lastly, it was suggested that i fix the bubbles coming out of the pipe so they looked more like they were coming out of the pipe not behind it. With these changes in mind I created the new animation below.

I worked on giving the fish a wiggle up and down which I think added another really good element to the animation, it made the fish feel more like they were actually in the water. I also liked the slight changes I made to the items in the background. The bubbles and the pipe were a little harder to change but I think I managed to get it to work better. I was then told that having one of the fish swim off screen would be fun and make it feel more like a complete story. It was also suggested that I work on the text bubbles so they disappear before the other one responds. I also realized that I needed to make it 30 seconds and instead of just looping it I decided to make it longer and more fun. I created the last animation with those things in mind below.

I think adding the items suggested and making the story longer made it a lot more fun. It really felt like a complete animation. There are still a few things that could be worked on but for a first ever animation it turned out really nice. The fish feel like they are really in water, everything moves and it feels complete. The story really came a long way from the original storyboard.

This was the final Illustrator file that I created for the last animation. It had everything in it that I needed to make my animation complete. I really like how the final composition turned out, I think it was a good learning experience and a lot of fun.