Pencil Rotoscoping ft. Big Joel ☆ﾟ.*･

Recently I made an eight second rotoscoped animation of my friend (for a tiny portion of a strange birthday video which you can watch here), and I thought it would be nice to talk a little bit about it here and post some of my favourite frames. I thought I'd try using pencil, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out because the texture looks amazing. I think this also lends to a really nice, soft looking movement because looking at the detail, the pencil lines allow for a lot of different line thicknesses and shading levels.

It feels sort of more precise than other mediums I've used before (paint, pen, etc), but also more fluffy. It makes the frames blend really nicely into each other, and I also felt like I had a lot more control with the pencil. As someone who usually avoids pencil, I am surprised and shocked, but I will now pledge allegiance to the mighty pencil.

Here's the full animation in gif form. I love the way the pencil lines make the hair look very shuffly, but I think my favourite section of the animation is the movement of the hand to swipe across the face and turn around. It's the most tactile part, a really satisfying little movement to animate because it feels weighty. I think that... I really love rotoscoping.

Here are two of my favourite frames (two out of eighty pencil drawings in total, which I now have in a huge wad of paper stuffed into a folder - way bulkier than I imagined when I started making this). Above, a moment of pressure as the hand starts to swipe across the face. I love this because it's compositionally satisfying, it marks the crux of the meeting of the two elements of the animation (hand and face), and I just like all the particular pencil marks on this one a lot.

Below, a much lighter, scratchier drawing of a moment shortly after. I like the looser feel of this and the way that works within the whole animation to create a kind of watery shift.

I like the way rotoscope animation can sort of transform real footage into something that feels a little bit magical or ethereal. Taking something real and making it into this weird little hand-drawn talisman. I'm super happy with how this turned out and definitely want to try making some more pencil rotoscoped stuff soon.