I was recently reminded of a personal project that I worked on during the pandemic. I wanted to create a project that took my sketchnotes and illustrations and added movement/animation to them, even if it was just simple animation. From the beginning, I decided to adopt restraints for the project. I wanted to create all of the final pieces on an iPad Pro. Obviously the sketches for the illustrations started out on paper with pen and pencil. I created the final illustrations and animation on an iPad.
I got the idea for the sketchnote slash moving sketchnote (what I considered the project) from a New York Times opinion article entitled "I spent a year in space, & I have tips on isolation to share" by astronaut Scott Kelly. The article helped me think about the Covid isolation but also reminded me of shows from my childhood like Star Trek, Lost in Space, and even War Games that I enjoyed. Oddly, at the time I was listening to the album by the singer-songwriter Aimee Mann entitled Lost in Space and had that playing in my mind as well while creating the piece, which is also what I decided to call the project.
Here is the final video. Sadly, it does not have any sound, but you can imagine Aimee Mann’s album playing softly in the background.
The illustrations are full of personal pop culture references to movies, TV shows, books, retro technology, and even an oddly specific orange clock from the 1970s that I remembered.
I used Apple Keynote to create the animations, yes, the presentation software. I knew that I would not be able to create full character animation and was inspired by some of the simple animation techniques of 1970s anime shows like Speed Racer and Star Blazers, where fewer things were animated at once to save both time and money.
The project was a wonderful experience and something that I am really proud to have created. It taught me the value of creating constraints for myself even on personal projects where I could have done anything that I wanted.
Be kind to yourself on your creative journey.
Here are some of my sketchbook pages and notes.
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You have reached the end of the newsletter. Here is the song by Aimee Mann that inspired the title of the animation.