She's a, She's a, Lady

Jay Pola

View it here!

shesashesaladyexportfinal.mp4

Project Name: She's a, She's a, Lady

She's a, She's a, Lady is a short animation about a woman coming out as trans through an ice skate. The idea was to focus on movement and music, the triumph of revealing herself to the world as her true self.

I made it to emphasise the joy that can come with becoming your true self - the sensation of triumph that can come with telling people who you really are unashamedly and without backing down or being told that you're not really who you say you are. As a trans person and a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, it was extremely important for me to show the good side of things, the joy that can really come with transitioning. There is a lot of media out there that I've seen that only shows the negatives, and I really wanted to emphasise the positives.

Process

Where did I start?

Character design

I designed the pre- and post- transition character, in as simple of an outfit that I could without making it all black.

Practice Pieces/WIPS

These are some unfinished animations of me testing out motion and proving I can work on the motions correctly.

Motion testing/Pencil testing

Here's an example of a basic pencil/motion test I did for our main character. This is an actual spin that's used in my animation.

Animatic_Blocking_Done.mp4

This is the original length of my work in animatic form.

Lining

Here you can see the lines coming in, even if they're on top of the penciltest lines.

Flat colours and Shading matte

The best part about this animation was it all coming together, seeing her come to life in this way. In the end, I added a tone node and made the light green seen here into a matte layer, leaving her shaded and looking good.

shesashesaladyexportfinal.mp4

Final piece!

I added in the logo, title screen and credits to the final piece and this is what I ended up with!! It looks great, and I'm very happy with my progress after all of this.

Collaborative work - Graphic Design.

Logo - Josh Hick - 1019891

These logos (and many other works in progress) were created by a Graphic Design student for the fake company that sponsored our main character for her skate.