My Role: Storyboarding, Illustration, & Animation

Process:

I rigged each character in After Effects with Rubberhose, which gives the limbs that loose, elastic feel — good for stretching and squashing without looking stiff. Before I could get to any of the fun stuff, I had to nail a proper weighted walk cycle first. Getting the settle and rebound in each step to actually feel like weight rather than just motion took a fair bit of trial and error.

Once that base walk felt right, I started pushing it into different states for each clip — a relaxed, easy stride for the opening scene, then a frantic, off-balance sprint for the bear chase, a hunched, miserable trudge in the rain, and finally a slower, straining climb up the rope. It ended up being less about four separate animations and more about seeing how far I could take one character and one rig, just through how she moves — panic, discomfort, effort — without needing any dialogue or extra context to sell it