Reyna Abadilla

1. To jumpstart my project, I drew a prototype of how I wanted my animation to progress. As the project went on, I gradually had more ideas that were added in so my draft is different from the finished product. I drew a mountaintop which would be Calvary, a mountain outside of Jerusalem’s city walls in the first century. Two mountains would be beside Calvary, Samaria and Judea filling the middle-ground. I wanted Calvary to be the center of attention in the drawing, along with the three crucifixions. I knew I wanted clouds to depart from His cross, drawing attention to Him. After deciding to create a new landscape, I began in AI; creating the background with the Rectangle Tool and clicking the Gradient Tool to look as if the day were coming. To create that illusion, I went to the Gradient drop-down menu to change the angle from 0 degrees to 90 degrees. Soon after, I began forming the mountains with the Curvature Pen Tool; starting from the top of the mountains and grounding it to the bottom of the right corner, all across to the left corner, and then reuniting the final point to the first point. I didn't use a picture to outline, I formed it as closely as I could to stay faithful to my original drawing. I wanted to add depth to Calvary specifically to gather attention, so I formed the illusion of dips in the mountain by diligently outlining the previous tips of Calvary. I struggled with what colors I wanted the mountains to be and I settled on tones of red to represent the blood of Jesus shed for sinners. The dips of the mountain, I used Stroke & Fill to contrast a lighter shade from the body of the mountain. I knew I needed to add a foreground because my landscape looked void without trees or grass, so I searched the internet to select vectors of trees and patches of grass. I created another layer before copying the selected trees and pasted the vectors into the new layer; selecting Image Trace, and the dropdown menu to Silhouette, ungrouped the images from each other, and separated them into numerous different layers. I scattered the trees to where I wanted them to be, the left and right corners, effectively adding life to the scene. I was diligent to name each layer by order; Background, Calvary, Tree 1, Tree 2, etc. Something was missing at this point in time, the crucifixions! Quickly creating three new layers, I then searched for a vector of Christ on the cross. Once again, I copy and pasted Christ into the project, selected Image Trace, dropdown menu to Silhouette, ungrouped the image from the background, then positioned Him on Calvary. Because two men were crucified next to Jesus, I copied and pasted the vector of Him twice, and dragged the two identical images into their appointed layers which I’d previously titled. I figured something was missing in the project, I had a new idea to add Saint John and His mother at His cross and two of His disciples on the lower of Calvary. A new idea had appeared, I wanted the risen Lord to appear from His tomb. I followed suit of how I added Jesus and the trees into the project, finding the vectors then adding them in. Completing the background was quick; I formed a sun using the Eclipse Tool, went to Gradient and selected the Radial Gradient, selected the Gradient slider, took to myself two shades of yellow, then added each marker to opposite sides of the Gradient. To flare my sun, I went to fx in the Properties Channel, hit the drop-down menu to Stylize, then again to Outer Glow. Adding on to the background as finishing touches, I formed clouds of my liking with the Eclipse Tool, gathering many circles to one using the Shape Builder Tool. After creating several layers, I appointed each cloud to it's titled layer by dragging it to it's box. After the long process of drafting my animation in AI, I began to animate in AE after double-checking that each layer was separate and titled correctly. I imported my AI landscape into AE, opened the Pre-Composition, and created my first Motion Path. 

​

2. My skills in AI are more enjoyable for me to exercise, I’m comfortably familiar with everything in that Adobe program. It was harder for me to work in AE because I’m not well equipped with any of the tools or where everything is located. I think it’s very cool to do small animations but I’m still trying to master it, or at least become more familiar with it, it’s like driving for the first time. You’re almost familiar with where everything is and how to do it, but not quite good at parking. The most challenging part was to manage my time, balancing it with working on AI and still having more time to work on the animations on AE. I think I played it too safe with this project and didn’t think to add more animations, I didn’t think creatively as much as I am capable of. If I had more time on this project, I would've made Jesus Christ rise higher in the sky and probably make the clouds change color as well.