Video Transcript
Hi, I’m Aysha Tengiz, an artist based in London working across illustration, animation, and textile design. I hold a degree in illustration and have been fortunate enough to have been commissioned by some of the world’s biggest brand and media companies.
Today I’d like to share how important traditional illustration skills are when it comes to creating digital assets like animated GIFS.
The difference between a GIF and a normal illustration is the movement. For me, the exciting part about a GIF is the character design – this is where I can add humour and personality to my illustrations.
I struggle to create natural movement on the computer without drawing it out on paper first, I am sketching on loose sheets of Winsor & Newton 150gsm Medium Surface Drawing Paper as it’s quick and I’m not worried about throwing away mistakes.
Once I’ve worked through my rough sketches I switch to a Winsor & Newton Fineliner, the 0.8mm is my favourite nib. What I like about the 0.8mm nib is the consistent thickness of the line. It’s perfect for my character outlines, and the ink is water resistant too.
When I’m happy with the character design, I move onto adding colour.
I work with the Promarker range from Winsor & Newton. I like to work on their smooth bleedproof marker paper because the colours lay down really flat, they’re streak free meaning that the characters on paper are very close to the finished onscreen animated gif
I switch between the fine bullet nib for detail and the broad chisel tip for filling in larger areas. It’s the perfect pad for alcohol-based markers,
They have a huge range of 189 different colours.
I will scan the illustrations, redraw and animate them in Adobe Photoshop. This was a commissioned project to create a range of animated GIFs for Facebook.
Ok, I’m happy with the artwork and it’s time to switch to digital.
Here are the finished GIFS.
As you can see, they have lots of personality and were great fun to create.
I hope you enjoyed this video, try creating some yourself.