User Experience 04: After Effects Tutorials 2

This week, I created an interim mascot to learn how to animate characters using puppet tools and layers. 

This is Aran, a character I created in Adobe Illustrator.
First of all, I had to design and create a character using vectors in Illustrator. I based my design off of a children's nursery rhyme YouTube channel that uses similarly styled characters. As it is a temporary mascot for practice, I am aware that the resemblance is very obvious. I tried to make the design as three dimensional as possible, using highlighting, shading and textures to make the character stand out. Due to his wooly, fabric like textures, I decided to give him the name Aran - like the Irish knitted jumpers. I placed each limb and section on it's own layer to allow for more specific and intricate movements in After Effects (AE).

Once the vector graphic was ready to go, I imported the character into AE. I followed several tutorials on YouTube to get some dynamic movements from the character as well as a text reveal. Those tutorials are linked here, here, and here.

I used a lot of keyframes on scale, position and rotation, and I was introduced to masking effects for the first time in AE. I went back to Illustrator and created some alternate eyes and mouths to be able to swap between them in AE for more facial expressions. After finishing the tutorials, I attempted some extra animations of my own that may end up, in some shape or form, in the final explainer project. The idea of a travelator to take the character through the stages of the tasks on the website.

Here is the five second clip so far:

Aran pushes the Shiny Red Button.

While I am happy with the appearance of the character from a technical standpoint, I am aware that he is too childish for the target audience. I am also wary that getting a decent walking animation that doesn't look horrendous may prove quite difficult. I have begun brainstorming an emotive robot that would be appealing to the audience for it's cute charm, and would tie in with the digital theme of the course. A levitating being may be easier to animate than one with legs. 


No, I have never seen Wall.E, don't know anything about a robot called E.V.A, and frankly I don't know why you would bring it up...

- Ultan

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