National Autistic Society brief progress

Over the last week I've been working on my autism animation. I found it really challenging to begin with because I havent really done anything like it before, and i was intimidated by the amount of difficult zooms and morphing that I had to do. The animation also has to be one continuous shot in order to fit our groups theme and so they all flow together. As usual, i put off starting for a bit because of this fear that I wouldnt be able to do it, but once i asked Matt and a few people more adept with Adobe Animate than me, I just went for it and the results arent terrible. I had to draw my character from above for the first shot, so I had to take a few reference photos of people from a height to get this to look right (it took longer than it should have.) After this, I had to work out how to morph  this image into the buzzing fly which comes next. I achieved this by experimenting with different in-betweens until i found one that looked like a natural transition, and gradually erased the surroundings in the first shot frame by frame so they flowed away naturally and didnt just disappear. I think this actually looked much better than i was expecting it to. Next I had the fly land, and also gradually erased it and drew lines sprouting from its legs that would make up a surface for the hand to write in in the next shot. I found the hand the most difficult part so far, because Ive never really animated something as complex before, so I had to take a few reference videos of my own hand writing and base my animation off that. It was frustrating because each tiny movement made a big difference in how the animation of the hand flowed, so it took alot of practice and trial and error to try and get something that looked natural, but im quite happy with how it turned out. The next part of the animation involved making the pen that was writing morph into a pairof legs walking, to show how footsteps can be distracting in an exam situation for someone with autism. As with the previous transitions, I made the hand flow away with gradual erasing, leaving the pen which i broadened and added a foot sprouting gradually. I used Preston Blairs 'Cartoon Animation' book to help me with the walk cycle, and im really happy with how it turned out, but i think ill have to slow it down a bit for the final animation.