- Ants Attack
- Khayla Shipman
- Stop Motion Animation (Digital Illustration)
- 2024
The concept of this project was based on a story my friend had told me about a picnic date crashed by some hungry ants. I thought the ants specifically would be fun to animate and while I did enjoy it, it was quite the undertaking. I began in Adobe Illustrator selecting a color for the grass and classic plaid picnic blanket scene. I created these all using varying sizes of rectangles. I then used other shapes and the pen tool to create the individual food items needed for the picnic along with the necessities for a meal (plates, forks, napkins, etc.)
Once finished with these layers I decided the scene needed something that prompted the ants attacking so I drew in a chunk of the bread missing leaving behind a bunch of crumbs. After adding some details the picnic was set. I then created the ant, our main characters, from 3 different sized circles/ovals and the pen tool. I then mapped out the root I wanted the over 60 ants to be taking in the animation. When animating my biggest obstacles was figuring out the appropriate speed needed to keyframe and the time commitment of animating each ant to create a follow the leader style line. While this took patience, I am pleased with the overall outcome and hours of work, I’m sure the ants are too.
