Spine 2D Animation Test (Patreon)

Alright guys. Time to gush.

I mentioned the other day I got myself a copy of Spine, a 2D animation software used for making still images into animated rigs/clips. This is my first attempt at a good mouth shot.

Started with the original image from the artist, and asked them to break their project into layers that could then be individually manipulated in post. Once delivered, I edited the layers to play nicely with each other in photoshop, then exported them as a JSON file into Spine.

Once there, had to watch some tutorials to figure out how to build new meshes and bone rigs over the different layers and then apply weight to them in order to move the individual pieces how I wanted. After that, exported it all as an image sequence of PNGs that went to Blender where they'd be finally rendered into an mp4 video.

Then it went to Davinci Resolve where I added some camera effects, a few vignette layers, then just tested to see how easy it'd be to have the camera "look" around the cavern. There are a few details I'd like to fix up, and I'll likely redo the animation altogether, but happy with this test none the less.

In the final video featuring this art, there will be 2 other mouth shots, 2 throat shots, then 3 stomach shots. All will be animated including some interactions with the character outside.

I know I don't usually go into my process often, but sharing it here helps me cement everything I've learned to make sure I can repeat this with the other 7-9 shots that need to be worked on.

But ho boy, it's gon be good when it's done.

Thank you for your support, and stay safe out there friends!