Working with Kenna

Today's blog is special! Not only is there a video involved but we also get to look into what Kenna, out lead animator, does for the team as well as how she does it. If you are interested in the field of two dimensional animation then this is definitely something you want to check out!

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Video Transcript

To start off, who are and what do you do outside of the studio?

So I go by a variety of names online, Kenna is my first name, I usually go by Savi in real life, short for Savitri, which is my middle name, and then most of the team knows me as Aries, like the zodiac, and she's my fursona. Outside of the studio I have several jobs, I'm the head animator for a marketing firm in my home town, I give tours at an art gallery and I do free Lance character art.

What got you into animation over other forms of visual media?

I've always been drawn to movement (like every Disney fan) but my friends growing up were very much about surreal and realistic art, and I couldn't compete with that at a young age, so I found something they didn't have the patience for, so I wouldn't have to compete with them.

What tools do you use when animating or creating other digital media?

When animating I use a variety of hardware and software. Hardware wise I default to my fancy Wacom mobile studio pro which a laptop-tablet hybrid and software wise I use everything from fire alpaca to the Adobe suite. Most of my work with Golden flame is done in Adobe Animate, formally flash.

What are the steps you take before animating?

I like to sketch in fire alpaca, which is a free program, before I begin animating. It lets me focus on the art rather than the actual intricacies of Adobe programs

How does Sprite work differ from your usual animation work?

The biggest difference between my Sprite work with golden flames and my normal animations is that Sprite work usually causes me to stay within a rigid frame count. For project "annhilation" everything is either 4 or 8 frames. It forced me to think in keyframes rather than natural tweens.

What is the most challenging part of animating sprites?

Animating sprites is hard because you have to really know what the most important key frames are, there's no time to waste on empty movement, and I'm still learning what movements those are.

What is the most rewarding part of animating sprites?

The immediate pay off is when Jackson/Zach usually shows updates whenever new sprites are finished and seeing them in game is so rewarding!

How often do you use the reference art you are given when animating?

When animating I try to keep the references our art director, Leloo, makes constantly on screen, because I personally struggle with staying on model and some of the characters have a body type I don't normally draw.

When you have to go back and edit an existing sprite or animation, how do you so without ruining the rest of the animation?

I keep the native .fla files for each character and since they all work off existing symbols and the 4 or 8 frame formula, it allows for me to stay kind of consistent. Unfortunately I was still somewhat new to Adobe Animate when we started production and you can see the line weight changes between certain frames on some characters.

How long does each sprite take to make, from start to finish?

It really depends on the types of attacks the character has. I believe our Rouge character took me the longest but he was also my trial run for this project. Since I have created about 6 full character sets since July and am at about 45 hours total work with this project, I would estimate about 7.5 hours spent on each character