I taught myself how to animate on Photoshop over 5 years and finally finished this video
I'd never animated anything before, so I made this video for my band as an excuse to learn how. Overall, this project has been in the works for about 5 years on and off. I'd work on it for a month or two, then abandon it for a while, come back to it later, rinse & repeat. I knew it would take ages but never expected it to be this long. I basically relied on sunk cost fallacy so that I felt obligated to finish it.
Everything you see was drawn frame by frame in Photoshop on a clunky oversized Wacom tablet. In some instances I'd trace over reference animations I found online to study movements and physics, then modified them accordingly. I realise this is probably cheating, but it helped me learn faster. I had no idea where the story was going, and gradually pieced together bits of cool imagery I dreamed up until it seemed like there was a semblance of a narrative. The video also informed the songwriting - we knew it would be a cartoon, and there was no way I was going to animate anything over 2min30s. Fuck that.
Anyway, I never want to see another flamingo in my life, but I'm proud of what I've accomplished. I learned a lot. Hope you enjoy.