OKAY SO

Things are finally at a place where everything is blocked out. The full sequence and logic of events is now clear. Arcane Orb -> Teleport -> Shenanigans. This is where things transition from the creative process to the labour process, more or less. In my experience a lot of animation is honestly just really advanced tracing, except instead of tracing one image you're finding the midpoint between two images.

There are some exceptions to that. I have it mentally logged where some inbetweens are going to be closer to one frame than the other (for easing motion in and out), or where things aren't necessarily all going to be moving at a uniform speed from point A to point B. Examples include the initial arm swing, where the upper arm settles into position before the lower arm and wand does [to hopefully give the impression of weight to the prop]. There's also the final roundening sequence, where the hair tumbles over the shoulder, which needs special attention to make it look correct. It's the kind of thing where if it wasn't just a solo project you'd see a lot more sketches and notes for how all this shit is supposed to work. (It's also the kind of thing I could've saved myself a lot of trouble by using extra sketch layers to plan out secondary action, like the hair falling over the shoulder, ahead of time. Lessons learned for the next one!)

The straining part at the end was a last minute addition. The attempted movement should feel difficult, and the bounce back to a 'relaxed' posture should be exaggerated slightly to give an impression of a release of tension. Wanted to really show how hard it is for inflated figures to get any range of motion. It does make me realise that's a pretty strong premise for animation in and of itself... :thinking:

(What happened to the wand? I don't know. I'll figure that out. That's the convenience of working with magic as a premise.)