Windmill in moonlight - animation

[handrawn]

dandruff eh - hence the flour texture, no?

- the bat may have been an afterthought, but it makes the animation, and its exit and re-entry points [in respect of the windmill] are well done

[Big Frank]

Actually, I have a secret weapon in such cases - text on a curve. It's a 24-frame animation so on a background frame I draw a curve corresponding to the flight path of the bat, then I write a line of text, in this case 24 letter O's, and join the text to the curve. I then adjust the kerning until all the O's are equidistant and position my bat images in their frames one by one so that in the final result nobody is any the wiser as to the entry or exit points. It's really simple and effective.

[Psaumure]

Very good Frank. It reminds me of a lighthouse i did a cupel of years back. i rendered it as a flash file. I enjoy animating in Xara. Thank you for the tip, that will come in handy.

I enjoyed the animation, you do great work. It would be nice to see a few more.

Thanks for sharing,

Paul

[handrawn]

a motion path - way to go Frank

[dcahall]

Nice technique Frank. Would be interesting to see the "path" before you overlay the bat images.

After seeing how well you did, I am not up to the challenge. I would probably not even come close. Mine would look very crude by comparison. My artistic talents are not that good. Especially trying to draw with Xara. I think I am more used to drawing with a bit map tool and need to go off and learn the Xara tool better.

Again, VERY nice. Wish I could do something similar.

[Big Frank]

In its simplest terms a windmill is simply a triangle on top of a square. This is not a competition, it's not about who is better than whom, it's about encouraging people to draw and to experiment. Like Edison, you simply need to be prepared to fail a few times. The technique between drawing a line in Microsoft Paint or Photoshop or in Xara may be different, but in the end you will have a line.

But until you draw that line, you have nothing.

Draw that line.

[handrawn]

someone is bound to say 'I draw the line, at that' - so I'll get in first and not say it

but it's true what Frank says...

[wizard509]

Nice one Frank! So that is a bat swinging around huh, I mistakenly thought it was a rip in one of the sails and was looking to see where the hole was. Oh woe is me!

[Big Frank]

blades Frank

Sails!!!

[handrawn]

traditionalist