Paper Animation: Behind-the-scenes timelapse! (Patreon)

Hello hello! Recently I posted a gif on here, which was a paper animation made from all the Pen Pal drawings I did last month. I also recorded all of me making it, so I could show you the process! Here is me showing you now!!!

This is, I think, the third month that my Pen Pal drawings have doubled as a paper animation. But before the "first" paper animation there was actually a failed attempt made on a light box. Because these drawings are primarily physical artworks for patrons I wanted to use decent paper which was too thick to trace through, and taping them down also damaged them.

So I purchased Dragon Frame, which is the software UI you see in this video. It's a program used primarily for stop motion, but happens to work great for paper animating as well and saves a lot of scanning. Basically, it tells your camera to take photos and puts them on a timeline with onion-skinning. It's what I've shot all three of these paper animations with.

For years I've wanted Dragon Frame, and a setup for animating with physical mediums, but as a freelancer making Flash cartoons I had no excuse spending money on tools that nobody would hire me to use.
But thanks to YOU lovely people I've been able to expand my toolkit to make the work that I want to make. After I finish my current film, I plan on incorporating techniques like paper-cutout and claymation into my work, and in the meantime I've been using these paper animations to familiarize myself with the software.

IN THIS PAPER ANIMATION, as will become evident 7 seconds in, I've used some of my old digital tricks. To clarify, the previous paper animations were done completely traditionally. But for this one, I was inspired by this great Caleb Wood tutorial I saw many years ago, and was excited to start trying different ways of incorporating traditional, in-camera techniques with my established digital ways of working.

So, I animated some simple blobby shapes moving around in Flash, and then drew a bunch of different illustrations that conformed to the shifting silhouette- so on one level you have this chaotic flashing noise of imagery, but it's also happening within this smooth movement. I tried to latch onto some lines and shapes from the previous frame so you'd see some quick-fire morphing within the chaos, but for some drawings I could just see a really clear image in that frame's guide layer that I couldn't compromise on. It was like drawing over a bunch of Rorschach tests.

I guess that's it- I'd say I'll let the video speak for itself but I've already written a whole bunch of words. Watch it if you would like to!