Type
Illustration, Motion Design, Character Animation
Tools
Illustrator, After Effects
This is a feel good project, showing random people doing their very own dance moves, with a fun minimalist design.
After drawing the characters on paper, I used Illustrator to vectorize them. With After Efffects, and especially with the two wonderful plugins RubberHose and Motion 2, I animated the characters in a looped gif of 2 seconds. It was a true challenge to make the motion design smooth and flawless.

Simple shapes animation

Characters were made on Illustrator with pretty basic shapes (circles, rectangles, lines, …). All thoses shapes, separated on several layers, comes to life in After Effects. Using the right speed curve is one of the detail that can simulate complex motion like gravity or bouncing.

Using the Rubberhose plugin

The kind of « elastic » gesture for the arms and the legs was simulated using the RubberHose plugin. With that tool, I was able to link directly the hands and the feet to the torso, and moving them in a natural way. The dynamic movements are generated with expressions, without having to worry about it!