The process of making
WAndering Willow
Willow Goes to Space
WORKing on the design
Year
02/2024
Building the rig
Here’s a look at the rig being built in After Effects. You can see the mouth controls for syncing to dialogue plus controllers for the face and body. Her loose strands of hair are on their own layers in case they need to bounce.
Syncing Voiceover Recording
Before moving onto animating the body, head and arms I start with syncing the character’s mouth with the audio from our voiceover actor.
In addition to the Willow in Space intro video, I made a series of countdown timers for Instagram & TikTok teasing the release date of the book. As the date draws closer, Willow gets closer and closer to the Earth.
Animation Tests
Translating the illustrations
When Brigette Burgman, the author of Wandering Willow in Spain, first shared the beautiful artwork for her upcoming children’s book I was immediately excited to work together. The challenge would be to find a way to translate these illustrations into working character rigs.
Early Sketch
I sketched Willow onto graphed paper to get her proportions then added in guides for the joints.
MAking Willow’s head rig
Here’s a recording I sent to the author as I was working to share the capabilities of the head rig.
