ANIMATION PRINCIPLES - ITERATION 3

This post is about the third iteration of my Infinity War Morphing animation.

This was the start of the second half of the animation, where the Eye of Agamotto turns back into the Infinity Gauntlet.

I knew I wanted the Eye of Agamotto to break, and then turn back into the Gauntlet. Not only was this part of the original plan, but it also stays true to Avengers: Infinity War, the movie the animation is based on.

Near the end of the Battle of Titan scene, Thanos takes the Eye of Agamotto away from Doctor Strange, crushing it in his hand.

(Thanos snatching and crushing the Eye of Agamotto - credit: Marvel Studios)

To replicate this effect, I needed to do three things;

1. Move any unnecessary details for this action out the way
2. Show how the Eye is being crushed
3. Show the Eye breaking

I did two of these steps at the same time; as the Eye of Agamotto gets squished from the sides, the two prongs recede into the Eye. They detatch from the Eye before it's crushed, and go back once it's dimensions change.

To show the actual breaking, I created a lightning-bolt shaped crack. I coloured it black, so that it would match the background and look like there was an actual crack left in the Eye. I hid it just to the left of the action when it wasn't being used, seeing that it blended in with the black background. When I needed it, I positioned it right above the Eye, and made it stretch down when the Eye snapped. What I did notice after working on this was that there's one frame where the prong that snaps off gets covered up by the crack. Something to fix next time, either by moving the crack somewhere else or by adjusting the layer placements.

One extra detail I added was a Time Rune. In the films, the rune appears when time is being manipulated. I thought it could be a good callback to the MCU's usage of the Eye of Agamotto to make it seem like time was reversing and reforming the Gauntlet. I'm not sure if I'll go forward with this though; while it looks cool at this point, it could distract from the rest of the morphing going on.

(A time rune being used in Doctor Strange - credit: Marvel Studios)

At this point, I'm really happy with how this is coming along! It's looking as smooth as I wanted it to, with the only thing I need to fix at this point already being mentioned. This post was mostly about the build up to turning back into the Gauntlet, but the actual transformation is what's next.