Animating the background

As I mentioned in the last post, I wanted to animated the background but to do this I needed to re-draw it, on separate layers to allow me to animate it.

I started with the flags and the fire which seem to work well enough, but the clouds felt too static and gave the animation a weird look. It just didn't work with a completely static skyline, so I made the foreground clouds move too, which feels like a huge improvement. There are still a few things I want to do, like adding embers and an orange glow to the tent nearest the fire, and possibly the birds, but I had to remove the warriors from the background because I just don't have the time to animate them and I think they would detract from the main action.

Once I had animated the background I was able to place the character back into his surroundings and see how well he fits. He now looks like he is part of the world, and the whole animation has a coherent aesthetic.