Pokemon GIF: Blastoise

My obsession of Pokemon from childhood has seeped through the cracks of my adulthood. In order to grow in your field of work, you have to constantly practice and find new challenges. By creating my favorite Pokemon in Adobe Illustrator and animating them in Adobe After Effects, I can expand my skills and still have fun doing it.

Blastoise consists of 8 basic parts: Eyes, Head, Inner Shell, Outer Shell, Arms, Legs, Cannons, and Hydro Pump. I first designed each element onto their own separate layers in Illustrator, then imported the .ai document into After Effects. The biggest challenge was realizing halfway through that the cannons needed to be on their own separate layer. I had already added a puppet warp mesh to the outer shell (including the cannons), and had to redo that whole set of keyframes. Planning is VERY important, people!