Creative landscape made with construction paper showing depth, variety, color balance with animation of a running alien
Step One: Brainstorm your alien
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We started by watching the video I made of the book, Your Alien. We focused on how the illustrator had to draw the alien in multiple poses throughout the story.
Then we used the handout below to brainstorm our alien and their personality which may influence how we draw them. See my post and resources for this book here.
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Your Alien Handout
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Her superpowers change her appearence
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Step Two: Finalize your Alien Drawing
Our alien will be running so we put our clean paper over this sketch as a guide
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We didn't trace the sketch instead thought of it as "place holders" for the body and limbs
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I challenged the students to limit their colors to TWO and keep the design simple so that they can successfully redraw the alien in multiple poses to create the illusion of running.
Click to view the SKETCH gallery
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Step Three: Import into app and trace
Students traced their sketch in the Do Ink Drawing and Animation app for their first frame in their animation sequence. First we went through all the steps for importing and setting up our animation. I printed my screen shot (see below) as a guide.
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Steps for setting up our alien animation (tracing over our sketch)
Step Four: Draw frames of animation
After tracing their original drawing, students chose their two colors and poured them into the drawing. Then used the "+" button to make a new frame. Then, they traced the head just as before but redrew the arms and legs to match the pose 2 position. They colored this one and continued. Frame 3 is where we draw the creature blinking.
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Finished Student Examples: view gallery
Quick Test Run through Art Room
4-1 Alien Invasion from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.
4-2 Alien Invasion from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.
4-3 Alien Invasion from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.
4-4 Alien Invasion from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.
Step Five: Design an alien landscape
4th graders constructed alien landscapes that demonstrated background, middle ground, foreground in a color scheme that matched their alien. These habitats have a clear path for their alien to run. See the gallery.
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Step Six: Alien Running in Habitat
4-1 Aliens in Habitats from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.
4-2 Aliens in Habitats from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.
4-4 Aliens in Habitats from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.
Step Seven: (Extra Credit)
Groups of student animators shared their Do Ink Animation files with each other and made a running collaboration animation. Here are the results.
Inspiration Video: Andy Martin
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Planet Eleven from Handymartian on Vimeo.
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