Ouroboros Animation

Fun little animation I was tinkering with in After Effects.

An ouroboros is an ancient mythological motif depicting a serpent or a dragon eating its own tail. There's a ton of symbolism here around the cyclical nature of life and eternal re-creation. It's typically shown as a circular or an infinity pattern to reinforce its recurrence.

The twist I added in my version here is that the serpent can't actually reach its own tail and instead tries to endlessly chase it forever in the path of an infinity symbol. Think it turned out pretty well.

The body of the serpent here is actually one long tapered stroke that's being animated with some offsets. The head is a separate shape that's following the same animation path while re-orienting itself wherever the anchor points of the paths turn.

Learned a few little neat tricks in After Effects while doing this! Would love to do a more detailed version down the road with more complex shapes and animation states.