Finishing the Hula

When finishing a traditionally animated sequence in Illustrator, it is important to note several critical issues. First, make sure you animate your images larger than they will appear in the final file. This will insure accurate drawing and aid greatly in the final finish in Illustrator. Secondly, build and test your image as you go, it is essential to analyze each section as you are creating it in Illustrator, you can see you errors more clearly when you are taking a section at a time. The main two issues with this sort of technique is the fact that you are dealing with an image with no line and that you are going to get small "wobbles" no matter how accurate your initial animation is. Having no line creates a circumstance where accuracy is at a premium, without a border your image edge has to me right on otherwise you will definitely see a small flicker. The good thing about Illustrator is the fact that you can "zoom in" work in outline and manipulate points with relative ease. It is a tedious process, in many ways more tedious than traditional cel finish. Here is my progress on the Hula girl for my website, and although you will probably not be able to see the tiny flaws that remain, I assure you that they are there. But luckily the mistakes are manageable.