I see faces - Dance gif inspiration

I was rolling down my Instagram feed and I came across a mini animation posted by the Instagram page 'Worldofartists'. I was instantly inspired by Ryan Woodwards animation called thought of you. The animation is a short love story and the male and female characters are drawn in a very simple way but the fluidity of the movements makes it a very lovely and elegant gif. My work in the past has been quite dark and has got a sinister approach. The zombie face gif is almost scary to look at and I now want to make a piece of work that is slightly more heartwarming.

I really like the colours that have been used to create this animation. The black male figure with the white female figure and the pale brown background work perfectly in harmony with each other.

There has been a balance created across the animation by using these soft and subtle colours. I may use a similar colour pallet when making my gif, but as it will be drawn by hand it will look much more rough and framey compared to this which is very fluid and smooth.

 There is a lot of energy in this gif/animation and it is shown through the movement of the characters. Every time I watch it, it makes me feel good. I want to create something that has the same impact on others when they watch it and something like this is a good way for me to do so. I have never really done anything like this before so it will be good to change my style for one of the gifs instead of having high detailed drawings.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BBxPvhwlQTB/?taken-by=worldofartists
link to the Instagram gif.

These are some sketches by Ryan Woodward. The way he captures the human form is beautiful. They are very gestural and confident, creating this sketchy shape of lines that is the human form. The lines he uses almost captures the movement of characters and exaggerated it. I may include these kind of lines in my gif to get the feel of flow and movement.


After seeing the mini animation by Ryan Woodward I then started to look at some pair contemporary dances to help inspire the movement and action that will take place during the gif I am going to make. I am pleased to say that I really enjoyed looking at theses videos. They can be quite mesmerising and its nice to see such strong trust and connection between two people. It is what I want to show in my gif. The connection people can have, but is shown through movement of dance.

After searching many videos of contemporary dance for the right moment, Ive finally found the one I am going to use for my gif. The video itself is 3 minuets long but I have found a 4-5 second scene within the dance that I am going to animate into a gif. I think the moment I have chosen to animate has really captured the feeling I am trying to get across with this gif.

The dance itself is actually really beautiful and I would like to animate more of it but for the sake of a gif, 4-5 seconds will be long enough to capture some form and gestural movements between two partners during a dance.

Mayo Alanen & Colby Massanari - Young & Beautiful by Lana Del Rey - Contemporary Ballroom Showdance