Hello and good morning! It's been two days since I last posted. I was supposed to submit this post the other day but I was so exhausted after doing it. Whew! My eyes and hands even hurt a lot so I took my time to rest the whole day. 14 hours of sleep felt so good. Lol. Anyway, last August 16 was the ROLLER COASTER DAY and I thought of creating a fun but simple animation to celebrate it. You can find the all the list of daily celebrations on DAYS Of The YEAR website.
HAPPY ROLLER COASTER DAY!!!
STRAYKAT'S FIRST ROLLER COASTER RIDE!!!
My first roller coaster ride was back in 2018 when some of my friends and I went to the province of Pampanga to have a short getaway after one of our friends went home for a vacation. One of the places we went to was SM Pampanga where it has an amusement park named Sky Ranch. The amusement park is quite popular and is often located on an SM mall, one of the biggest mall chain in the Philippines.
Weeks before we set to this short trip, we have been deciding our activities including what rides in this amusement park are we going to try. One that we have agreed on was the roller coaster. I was hesitant at first because looking at the videos and photos scares me. Will I survive when we go 360 degrees on that single loop? Will I faint? Will I get dizzy and puke? Lol. So many questions inside my head.
The day came to face my fears. Aside from us, there were two people who rode the roller coaster. It was sunset when we went to Sky Ranch. There were lots of people but only few were trying the roller coaster. We left our bags at a box and chose our seats, one on each row. It scared me more that no one sat beside me even though I was on the middle row of my friends. Hahaha! The roller coaster moved and climb ever so slowly and dropped at full speed when it reached the peak. All I can remember was me screaming (even though my voice barely came out) with my head down because I was scared to see what's happening. Lol. I shut my eyes close especially when we entered the loop. It was my first time to get turned 360 degrees!!! The roller coaster quickly shifts from left to right, it feels like you are being thrown. Lol. There's even a part that you'll almost hit the ground when it moves sideways. That alone was enough to make me scream in fear. 😂
After the fun ride, we had a photo taken as a proof our riding a roller coaster. One of my friends who was a the third row transferred at the front while I remained at the second row.
Here's a zoomed version if you find it difficult to see me and my blurred face. Hahaha!
The roller coaster at Sky Ranch is only small but it was fun and thrilling. I didn't feel nauseated probably because fear and thrill had taken over me more. I wanted to try it again and try the Space Shuttle at Enchanted Kingdom someday!
ANIMATION AND DRAWING PROCESS
- My first step on creating animation is to make a draft of how I'd like my animation to be. This is also to see if the animation will work fine so as not to waste effort after drawing the final piece. I don't try to make the animation detailed too. The program I use for creating animation is Macromedia Flash 8, by the way. Old but still works for simple animations!
- As you can see here, the wagon or train moves at a constant speed making it look unrealistic. But this is just a draft to see whether I can make the wagon move and follow the track. When I knew how to animate it, I proceed to making the final drawings.
I create my drawings on Clip Studio Paint. I saved the drawings per layer so I can make my character riding the wagon move around and go over and under the roller coaster loop.
Going back to Macromedia Flash, I arranged the drawings on the layers, drew a guide and created a motion tween so the wagon would move and follow the guide.
After making sure it follows the guide, I then began fixing the speed of the wagon by adding more frames in between to make some movement slower. I also have to fix each frame to make sure the wheels are intact with the track.
- Since I wasn't able to draw a guide that perfectly traces the roller coaster track, I have to fix it first.
If you will notice, the wagon goes under one side of the loop before going in the loop. I made it that way to make it look somehow realistic. On Clip Studio Paint, I cut and separated on a different layer the portion the wagon would pass by so I could sandwich the wagon in between when I animate it. I hope my explanation is clear. Lol.
After I am satisfied with the speed of the wagon, I export it and convert the flash file into MP4 through a software called Swivel.
This animation is 210 frames in total.
Medium: Digital Art (Wacom Intuos Comic)
Program: Clip Stuido Paint, Macromedia Flash 8, Swivel, Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Gif)
Frames: 210
Drawing and Animation Time: Almost a day 😂
Thanks for reading! :)
Have you tried riding a roller coaster?
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