What was the most technically or artistically challenging element of your scene? What are you most proud of? Layout image for “You Can Sing” from the Harmony 20 demo video by Anja Shu. But I also wanted some elements to stay the same and unite the two contrasting settings, like how the roses that fall on stage later come together in a vase.Īlso the curtains - at first it’s a red stage curtain and later it’s a curtain on the window.

So I carefully plan the transition - I have the lines and the colors move separately, warm candle lights turn into cool electric lights, and the chandelier on the ceiling becomes a simple lamp. Backgrounds should always serve the story and the actions of characters in the scene. I think of the background as a live character as well. What did that process of planning out this transition look like?

We noticed that every element in the transition between the opera and the singer’s home moves. But she’s not losing her creativity and she’s doing a dance in front of the mirror. When she’s at home, everything is all the way around - she’s wearing simple clothes, no make-up or updo, the background is in cool tones, and candles turn into simple electric lights. The background is in warm tones, there’s gold and candles around. She’s on stage, her gestures are wide, and she’s putting her heart into the signing. I wanted these two sides to be contrasting, so at work our character is wearing an elegant dress, a wig, and red lipstick. My line was, “You can sing, you can dance,” and I had this idea of an opera singer character being creative both at work and at home.

What was the prompt that you were given, and how did you interpret it for this project?Īnja Shu: The whole project is about discovering creative sides of personality. Below, they share the interview with Cartoon Brew’s community. Toon Boom interviewed Anja about the scene she contributed to the demo pack for Harmony 20, as well as her advice for experimenting with textures and watercolor effects in animation. The aesthetic style of her frame-by-frame animation is directly inspired by traditional art materials. These teams were drawn from both the Toon Boom Ambassador Program and the company’s international community, and were given total creative freedom on their scenes.Īnja Shu is a 2d animator from Kyiv, Ukraine who has contributed to a number of animated feature films, shorts, series, commercials, and games - and was selected to be a Toon Boom Ambassador for 2020. To showcase all of the features in its software Harmony 20, Toon Boom invited seven artists and teams to produce a demo video, each contributing scenes inspired by a short prompt.

Toon boom harmony frame by frame