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Google Doodle Manatees

  • beannadurns
  • Feb 17, 2016
  • 2 min read

Google Doodles was the name of this project, a fun little animation project based on the animations and drawing that Google display during certain days or events through the year. For this project, I had to make one myself.

I had the choice of Celaction and Flash to create this project, however due to technical difficulties, my choice was reduced to Flash or fail. I had used Flash previously, however my experience was somewhat limited, and so I would have chosen to refine what I knew and learn more about Flash anyway, even with the choice.

As I have previously mentioned, I do not consider myself a fantastic animator, though I sometimes try. So I considered that for this project, and again limited the use of animation, as I was intending to learn the software more than to animate.

I researched different national holidays and awareness days and months, and whittled the choices down to Manatees. They are interesting and I hadn’t drawn them before, plus with the myth of mermaids originating from them, I considered the possibilities for creativity.

As I drew different manatees and ideas for the Google Doodle, I also taught myself about buttons in Flash. I like the idea of hovering my mouse over an object and having it change. This produced an idea for manatees to turn into mermaids; which later became an idea for manatees to dress as mermaids, which in turn then became the final idea of manatees dressing up and looking a little silly. I also came across a way to turn the cursor into a manatee.

(Please click to view these images below)

The manatee drawings themselves were very enjoyable to make, including both the plain manatee and the “funny” versions.

Then, tragedy.

Two days before my deadline, the file, nearly finished, corrupted.

I was distraught.

No version would open.

Luckily, I knew by then what I was doing and the other files I needed were still safe, so with tears streaming down my face, I created and finished a new one in the matter of a few hours. The sound however….

I'm sorry.

Overall, I am very happy with this piece of work, with all of its faults and problems getting there. I wish I could fix the sound and I wish I could have looped the bubbles in the background better. But the artwork is nice, the idea is humorous and it caught some attention. I received a 2:1 for this project.

The animated, interactive version is available on the Home page.

 
 
 

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