Plague doctor animation 1/2

It is time to make an animation with my favourite tool for it: Krita! I'm starting with one that has been in my mind since the last spring, when Covid-19 inspired me with plague doctor animation idea. I have always found that mask they wore fascinating and because I like steampunk style was also planning to add that theme in the artwork. I made the first sketch and was planning to make a simple closeup animation of the character and maybe some birds flying in the background and a little bit of smoke. For some reason it never became more than an unfinished sketch, until now! I changed the plan and draw the sketch ready about the whole character, because in the 2/2 part I will make a city background for it with some animations.

I made some slight changes and the final line art keeping in mind the parts I want to animate about the character and draw them to separate layers.

Next part took long time but was the most exciting part of the process because it was the actual animation part and I was able to see my idea working. I focused on different parts, starting from the clothes moving in the wind. It felt very useful learning experience to try different kind of ways for the lantern and the smoker to hang naturally. A lot of trial and error, small changes here and there, cleanup and this was the result.

After successful line art animation I started with flat colors. In my opinion this is the phase where you know if you want to be an animator or not. Coloring takes time and after selecting the combination you want there is no creativity in it, you just repeat it frame after frame. This was also the most time consuming part for me and I really hope to find faster ways to do it in the future.

Then it's time for the last details; shadows and highlights. I kept them fairly simple for the sake of faster progress and also because I might make changes after drawing the background.

And after getting all frames finished with their details and being happy with the result, it is safe to say the 1/2 part of this animation is ready. Here is the final GIF of my plague doctor! 

Thanks for reading and watching my animation! Next time plague doctor animation 2/2!