The last time I made an animation was still on my intro video on Youtube. I am not an animator, I just have fun making them with the little animation knowledge I know. Haha! Oh, since we're talking about animation, I'll take this moment to plug my Youtube channel. Please subscribe! Hahaha! There's nothing much in there, just an intro and 4 other videos, I guess. But I'll put my very first episode maybe next month.
Moa-metal and Pizza, "In The Name Of"
That girl in odd costume you see in my animation is Moa Kikuchi, known as "Moa-metal", a BABYMETAL member who dances and also do backing vocals. BABYMETAL is a kawaii idol metal group composed of two members: Su-metal and Moa-metal (former member: Yui-metal). Aside from their odd music, BABYMETAL has a gimmick where they worship a God called the Fox God and pays tribute to it by doing the fox sign. The group is backed with a band called Kami Band.
The costume you see above, for me, was the group's temporary costume after Yui-metal left. They wear this when performing the song "In The Name Of". BABYMETAL came up with a concept called "Dark Side" and "Light Side". People speculate the management used this concept while thinking of the best strategy for the two members. Since Yui-metal left, the three-person formation is no longer possible and so they added two more dancers. Moa dances at the center back most of the time which is not a fair, plus, their makeup is too dark. It's the BABYMETAL era everyone didn't like much.
"In The Name Of" eventually was included on their 3rd album, Metal Galaxy. It's a cool song where the girls only stand and move a staff. For my animation, I added a pizza in the middle of Moa's staff because she is known to love food especially pizza and burger. There are jokes among the fan groups that BABYMETAL is a cult and other things you call someone affiliated with the devil (but of course that's not true), so I think adding a pizza (because it's shaped triangle) in the middle of that circle can spark some laughter.
I only used 4 frames for this short animation and just duplicate them to do the repetitive actions. Oh, I hope I am using the right terms? If I said something wrong, please correct me! On the fourth frame, I added a light behind Moa and drew a glowing color around her. As you can see on the photo above, I only have three frames. That's because the 1st and 4th frame is just the same. I only added the light and the squiggly line near the end of the staff where it hits the ground.
My first step in making animation is to draw a draft of the frames to see if the movement of the character and flow of the animation is good. I know you're curious what program do I use for animating. It's Macromedia Flash 8. I think I'm the only person using this program in 2020. Hahaha!!! Poor girl!
When I'm satisfied with the animation, I export the frames and import them to Clip Studio Paint where I'll draw it. After drawing each frame, I will export it and import them back at Macromedia Flash. After arranging the sequence, I will then export it as .swf and convert it into mp4 using a program called Swivel. Then I edit it on Adobe Premiere when I want to add music. Such a tedious and confusing steps but it's worth it when you see you're character moving. :)
Here's my animation with the "In The Name Of" song:
I guess that's all for this post. I hope I didn't forget anything.
Medium: Wacom Intuos Comic
Program: Macromedia Flash 8, Clip Studio Paint, Swivel, Adobe Photoshop and Premiere CS6
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Good morning!!!