Development

Each Inktober animation brings it’s own challenges. For Risky n’ Crispy I was working on another heavily involved project and finding the time for the Inktober was difficult. No matter. With this being my fourth challenge, I had some tricks up my sleeve. I knew a successful Inktober tells a simple story of a character performing a simple and loop-able action. After ingesting the 2021 prompts, the character of a skateboard riding raven quickly jumped out at me. I chuckled at the idea and moved forward with it.

Raven References

Putting a raven on a skateboard provided some interesting anatomical challenges. I observed skateboarders and ravens midflight to ultimately come up with the best silhouette for my skateboarding fowl.

Inspired by the prompts “splat, crispy, and spark” I decided this daredevil avian would take a wrong step and get cooked, so references of a cartoon chicken dinner would also be necessary.

Warping the 31 Frame Time

Inktober animations only last for a mere 31 frames, so oftentimes it’s a challenge to make the action readable. I had some difficulty showing the raven burning up and turning into a cooked chicken. The transformation happens so fast it can be difficult to spot. I spent some time in After Effects doing some time-remapping, slowing down the parts where the visuals were important while still maintaining the 31 frame length.

Final Thoughts

Risky n’ Crispy demonstrates how much I’ve gotten my Inktober challenges down to a science. Despite my lack of time to work, I was able to comfortably finish this project. I may look to trying some other simple animation challenges in the future. Something different than telling a one second story in black, white, and gray.