Buddha's Enlightenment
Illustration Motion
The goal of this project was to create an illustration motion piece that presents a culture’s visual language.
The goal of this project was to create an illustration motion piece that presents a culture’s visual language.
My main inspiration was the country of Thailand. During my initial research, I discovered that 95% of the population practiced Buddhism and many of their artistic and social structures were based upon this religion. In conclusion, I made the decision to represent Thailand with its most treasured figure, Buddha, and based my motion piece on the story of his enlightenment.
My illustration of Buddha draws from traditional Thai folk art. The intricacy of the linework combined with the vibrancy of the colors in Thai art were the main sources of inspiration when I created my illustration, however I also kept my illustration relatively simple so it would be easy to follow once animated.
I animated this motion piece by first creating it in Illustrator, then importing it to Adobe After Effects. Using the Trim Paths function, I was able to create the effect of the illustration “drawing” itself. The process was incredibly time consuming as each line in the illustration is a single layer, thus the total amount of layers exceeding 250.
The coloring and final effects were all done in After Effects. This project was completed in the span of two days.
