Beyond the Horizon

by Ryan Hill.

My capstone project, Beyond the Horizon, is a 2-dimensional, digitally drawn animation. The story revolves around the relationship between a mouse and a tree, and what happens when the mouse’s curiosity drives it to explore beyond the bounds of the tree’s protection. This animation first started in my head as an image and an idea: an animal (a fox at the time) living in a tree within a blank space, and the idea of venturing into the unknown despite uncertainty. From there, it developed into a story about the conflicting pressures of security and exploration, and the importance of breaking out from our small, familiar microcosms to experience what lies beyond. My goal was to create something fun and emotionally impactful while exploring these themes.

This animation was created with Adobe Photoshop and After Effects. The character animation and stills were drawn frame-by-frame in Photoshop, and then brought together with additional animation, effects, and sound in After Effects. I organized myself in a similar way to the older, traditional animation workflow: first linework, then coloring, then compiling and effects.

View Ryan’s photo book for the project

Visit Ryan’s portfolio site

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