The Witching Hour | Motion Graphics meets animation

The Witching Hour | La hora de las brujas

The Witching Hour is a project born as a visual representation of Birdy's music piece by the same name, as well as a previous personal project of a brewing cauldron thought as a loop animation for the background of asmr room videos or music compilations.

Process

It all started when I wanted to practice animating fire and smoke. I had so much fun with it I decided to complicate it more and more and thats how we ended up here.

The first step was comming up with a storyboard on procreate . The different thumbnails introduces the viewer first to the time of the day (night), then the enviroment (in the middle of a dense forest), and finally the concrete place of action: a witch hut.

After this short introduction to set the tone, the main character of the piece is introduced: the witch. To keep the attention with a bit of suspense, the character is introduced little by little; firstly the pointy hat, then we get to have a glimpse of her face through some glass bottles. After one detail shot of a fire pit lighting up to brew a potion to suggest the action in process through the wohle piece, finally the witch is in full view in a general shot of her living quarters.

To add magic to de character I decided to make the insides of her robes and hat emit light. I wanted to have fun with the light reflections during the whole piece so I opted for a very curly hair that would show a lot of life with that glow from the hat bouncing on it.

Illustrations/Styleframes

Side by sidethe final still / the procreate illustration / sketch for storyboard