This was a very fun collaboration project. I have been wanting to expand my animation skill set and had admired Kitty Wong's work for some time. So I proposed I animate one of her amazing paintings. The process involved a lot of filling in details as they reveal themselves through camera motion. The other challenge was rigging an existing painting of a person. I separated all the parts I wanted to move in Photoshop, including various layers of hair, the head, the arms, and the legs. The eyes I asked Kitty to paint variations for animating a blink. I did the same for the dog as well, trying to add as much life and detail to the scene as possible. It was a learning curve figuring out how to have all these moving parts interact with each other, like the ornament staying on her hand until she hangs it, and each body part being linked to a connection point so they all move together. I capped the whole thing off with wavey reflections in the water and twinkling stars and Christmas lights.
You can see a summary of the process in the second video below.