Base14

Happy Holidays from all of us at Base14! As a special gift to our Internet friends, I’ve created something special for anyone stuck at home this season in need of something to do. Why not brush up on your After Effects skills? Presenting the latest Base14 Tutorial: “2D Animation Compositing in After Effects.”

» Download the tutorial files right here.

This is a popular tutorial I have done for some workshops at SCAD and I have been getting requests on my YouTube Channel for some sort of follow-up to my 2D Character Animation tutorials. This video goes into detail on how to properly export character animation from Flash and import it into After Effects to combine with background and foreground elements. It also gives a handy trick of how to duplicate a character animation clip to make a convincing shadow.

Anyone who’s interested in digital animation should find it useful. Enjoy!

The week is coming to a close and I have a few updates, plus a poppin’ fresh new video to keep you entertained… while we secretly work on other projects. First, some news.

Duck Heart Teslacoil has been chosen to be included on the Animation Block Party 2010 DVD. The DVD features all the favorite picks of the 2009 Animation Block Party and it’s really an honor to be included! I’ll definitely post a link when it goes up for sale. DHT was also accepted to show in the Smogdance 2010 Film Festival! It will show on January 23rd at Laemmle Theaters in Claremont, California.

Now then, for the video. This was a project for one of my animation grad classes at SCAD dealing with sketching for motion and animation. We had to rotoscope some dynamic piece of motion from a film or television show, so I chose Bret’s angry dance from the 12th episode of Flight of the Conchords. My aesthetic choice was to do the entire thing using office supplies, so the art is drawn in ballpoint pen, Sharpie marker and yellow highlighter. And yes, I retraced the background for every single frame! It’s kinda cool, so check it out!