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For the final project in Digital Imaging, we were told to create a GIF using either a digital painting or a vector portrait. I chose to create a GIF using Adobe Photoshop with frame animation. The main idea of the project was to show a break in reality. My break in reality was glowing facial marks and the transformation from normal eyes to cat-like eyes. The images above show my progress updates over the weeks it took to make this, and the bottom image shows the final product of my work, with a background and colors included.

Artist Statement

The GIF I made for my final project is a digital painting of my character, Tanzara, and her animal companion, Nolok, in a jungle clearing. A notable aspect of Tanzara is her facial marks, which can glow when she accesses what I term as, “the Wild Side”. The break in reality I chose to show in my final project is supernatural abilities, ones that are not explained in full, keeping large details in the unknown. The supernatural abilities shown are Tanzara’s facial marks glowing when she is surprised and when attacking with her spear, as well as her eyes suddenly shifting to that of a cat’s eyes. I chose to break reality with these aspects because I’ve always found the unknown more interesting than the unknown, including that of the supernatural. Since humans cannot naturally change the shape of their eyes, I felt it would be an interesting subject to tackle for this project. My original idea was to draw an airship I felt I was comfortable with, but afterwards I felt it would be much more interesting to feature these characters I’ve been working on for a while now. The influences for this work include the works of the artist James Baxter with his ability to create smoothly animated sequences by hand, and animated films such as the Jungle Book and the works of Studio Ghibli. The Studio Ghibli film that inspired this GIF the most was the film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. I’ve always wanted to make an animated GIF of this caliber but could never push myself to complete one, this project was the one element that helped me tackle that barrier, and I will continue to push myself to develop my imagination and as an artist.