While TAing a course, I was asked to make a GIF tutorial using Photoshop.
Last time I use photoshop for any moving image applications was probably in 2020, so I was pleasantly surprised that Photoshop has now included a video drawing features called “video layer“, which allows a single layer to preserve multiple drawings, unlike the old each-frame-a-layer monstrosity.
However, the video layer retains the drawing per frame, which means the drawing lasts only one frame and disappears afterwards. This makes “exposure” impossible and rendered key framing near impossible.
But anyways, after poking around for some time, I started to sketch an animated sequence. At the time I was following a wicked magical girl show so I decided to draw a transformation sequence. Not much thought was put into it, most of the stuff hereby are reverse engineered after the initial draft.
The character is given the name 村雨 (Murasame) - possibly a magical girl name and not a person name - this is inspired by the fact that she is using a sword instead of a magical wand/staff. The Murasame name came from the cursed blade of 村正 (Muramasa), it is historically believed that many Muramasa blades were renamed to Murasame in order to escape the Tokugawa persecution.
I only realized after 中割り (Chu Wari) that she is using left hand as the dominant hand. In fact, after going through my old works, it looks like a lot of character I draw are left handed. I suspect it has to do with myself also use left hand as the primary hand for martial art weapons, despite being right handed in other situations (hmmm… I also prefer left eye when using an iron sight).
For Kenjutsu and Kendo, left hand is typically forbidden (luckily the Dojo I’m in has no enforcement on this matter and I get to through a lot people off with my left hand wickedness). But given her identity of a Murasame user, being left handed makes a lot of sense.
While initially wanting to add more special effects, the number of video layers have already reached over 20 layers after filling the color. My computer is complaining with both slow speed and loud fan noises, so I have to call it a day. Underneath is the finished GIF:
