Featured Animator: Rocque - Baby New Year (Part 5)

Rocque

GoAnimator Rocque is the September winner of my GoAnimate, Get Featured in TET's Blog contest. Rocque has had her account with GoAnimate since March of 2011 and in that time has amassed 915 followers and published 78 animations.

Rocque chose to feature her animation Baby New Year (Part 5), saying...

"I chose this animation to feature because I think it is my favorite one so far out of the series that started as Baby New Year then was going into a series titled 2012. It seems so long ago now. This one is special because of the incredible voice acting. I was honored to have Hollywood3514, Latin Fire, J Files Graphics, and RoTV take time out of their busy schedules to lend voices. It was almost 6 minutes long and there were a lot of lines."

Watch Rocque's animation below and then read about her inspiration and challenges in creating the video.

Baby New Year Part 5 by Rocque on GoAnimate

Inspiration...

When 2011 was nearing its end there were so many rumors about 2012 being the end of life. So I started the Baby New Year series.

 I still have not really gone into too much detail about what happened, but the short story is that something happened and Baby New Year was not growing. He was stuck in infancy and that could only mean something had gone wrong with time. That was the premise for my series in my mind.

As a baby he was being sheltered by the girl (Hope), and the Ravens had to find a way to take him. Whether the little ravens are good or bad still remains to be seen. So I am not even near to be finished with this series even though the year is long gone. 

 I like to leave a lot of unanswered questions in my animations to see who can figure out what direction I am going in. Especially in a series like this was intended to be. 

 I also was inspired because I was spending lots of time in hospitals with my mother who had a turn in her health and I got into watching some older anime series with really cool sword fights and magic.

Main Challenge...

There were a lot of challenges in making this animation. Syncing the scenes was not as easy then. Getting all the scenery to move in one or two directions, the sky to move in another and then the characters to move, too, was very time consuming and challenging. It was still fun though. 

I wanted there to be a lot of scenery changes to keep it really interesting for the viewer. 

Up til this time I never really used sword fights, and I did not want a full sword fight but something that would draw in interest for future sword fights. That was before the tutorials and the fabulous fights we now are used to seeing. I wanted to have the female fight but not to kill just to establish who had more power. I was hoping people would notice the Raven had the more powerful sword and it had magic attributes. 

Techniques I used were adjusting frame lengths, parts of the frame that the viewer could access, and a whole lot of trial and error. I spent hours finding the right music, deciding on volume and layering. I wanted this to be Go Animate Epic!

In the end I am happy with the results. I loved the Sea of Sorrow part, too. There is just a lot in this animation. I admit I do watch it still, and when I do I get inspired to continue the series even though I might not until 2015. If people have suggestions maybe they can let me know.

If you've enjoyed Rocque's work then why not check out more of Rocque's animations on GoAnimate.

Runner up Featured GoAnimators for the month of September included:

• WhataWreck
• knuttybunny07
• Firenail
• Fcs Productions