EXPERIENCE, LOVE, CREATE ART
ANIMATIONS AND VIDEOS
Frame by Frame animations, school work, vlogs, process videos
SELF-TAUGHT FBF ANIMATOR
I've been making frame-by-frame animations since I was a kid. I still remember my first project was a talking Club Penguin penguin on Pencil 2D on my grandmother's Apple TV. Now, I use Clip Studio Paint to do the bulk of the animating, then After Effects (or Capcut if I run out of a license) to composite.
FEATURED
NEW MAGIC WAND MUSIC VIDEO
Music heavily inspires my videos. Most of my videos have an existing piece of music to go with them, and it's usually my favourite pieces of music. When I listen to music, I have a music video already in mind which helps lots with the directing process.
New Magic Wand by Tyler The Creator came out in 2019, the year where I started developing symptoms of BPD. There was so much teenage angst, drama at school and the upcoming O Levels, alongside prolonged family issues.
Igor, the album it's in, is about a character who obsesses over his crush who's already in a relationship with another woman. In whole, the album is a great showcase of one going through the stages of grief when deeply in love with someone they can't be with.
At the time, I couldn't really understand the nuances of the song, and rather felt more moved by the melody - angry, powerful and maniacal. And when 2021 came round - when I experienced my first major heartbreak - the song finally made so much sense. Suddenly, the screaming in the back track, the droning synths and the pleas for his lover to stay could finally be heard. It was the perfect piece of music to create art to.
THE TIGER
TRIGGER WARNING: SELF HARM
When planning out the storyboard, I mostly just came up with ideas on the spot other than the visuals I had already seen in my head prior to animating. One of them was the tiger - a simple looping animation of a tiger with red stripes.
I came up with this visual when thinking back to darker times when I had resorted to self-harm to deal with emotional pain. It was my way to assert myself and prove my bravery, and a means to scare someone if they tried to wrong me. While it was twisted and obviously troubling to others, the cuts made me feel like a cunning tiger, strong and dangerous. I feel the visual matched Igor's crazed laughter on the track.
HER FEET
The visual of a pair of feet under a toilet cubical is based on real-life events. I had a breakdown at my school that day, and suddenly ran out of the classroom as the noises (both in the real world and in my head) got too loud. I kept running, as if trying to literally outrun the noise in my head so I could be left alone. I ended up curled up in the toilet for an hour or so, and somewhere towards the end, a person entered the cubical right next to mine. It was her.
THE MIRROR
THERAPY AND LEARNING ABOUT SCHEMAS
To deal with the breakdowns I experienced in 2021, I finally started seeing a therapist, though it was long overdue. During my sessions, I was treated with schema therapy, a form of therapy used to treat patients with BPD, which categorises a person's actions and feelings into child and parent modes. With BPD, moods are erratic and unpredictable, and so uncontrollable it almost feels as if the mind is splitting into different modes whenever there's a trigger, with no clear direction in mind. Hence, the mirror reflects my different modes telling me what to do, as if I've turned to them for emotional counsel.
THE LITTLE GIRL
As previously mentioned, one of the schema modes is a child. It can be angry, vulnerable or sad. These modes surface when basic needs aren't met, like when one is emotionally neglected by a loved one. In my case, I turned erratic, explosive and irrationally angry when I didn't get the attention I wanted. The "angry child" took over, as if on an angsty rampage to destroy everything in her path. It's why I chose to depict her as the true antagonist in this story, puppeteering the main character while she lashes out. This was actually a last minute addition - I had just learned about the schemas at the time, and because I was so fascinated by the concept, I used this project to better understand why I did certain things, and more importantly how to learn from my mistakes.
GALLERY
GALLERY
LUDENS
bring me the horizon
Death Cupid music video, WIP
I'm a HUGE fan of UK rock band Bring Me The Horizon. I know and actively listen to many of their songs, and even have their band logo tattooed on my ankle! It's no wonder that I use a lot of their songs for inspiration, especially for more upbeat action animations.
Ludens is one of my favourite songs by BMTH as it feels inspirational, powerful and cool (for lack of a better word) all at once, thanks to the fusion of electropop and metal elements. Used in the Death Stranding soundtrack and part of BMTH's Post Human: Survival Horror album, this song speaks about how the world is in need of a "new leader" who can change things for the better, with more creative and humanistic approaches.
Like Bleach creator Tite Kubo, I love to assign theme songs to my Death Cupid characters, and Ludens is perfect for protagonist Katherine Amore who has the power to change the narrative in her own humble and compassionate ways, despite being the timid and mild-mannered teenager she initially is.
MY PROCESS
All my frame-by-frame animations start in Clip Studio Paint, where I lay out keyframes, improve animation flow, then line and colour each frame. It's a rather tedious and long process, but the result is always worth it. Then, I import the image sequences into After Effects, where I enable frame blending and continue the remaining compositing effects such as colour correction, adding particles and applying motion functions to add that hand-held camera effect.
IMAGE SEQUENCES AND STORYBOARDING
STANDALONE animations
MY DRAGONFLY
VALENTINE'S DAY PERSONAL ANIMATION
For Valentine's Day 2024, I made a quick, sketchy animation featuring my two original characters of Death Cupid, Kat and Jay, kissing. It's an animation made from scratch, with no references or rotoscoping.
Song: Dragonfly by Dana and Alden
PAN'S LABYRINTH
SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT
This is a short animatic made for a school assignment while I was studying Digital Animation in Singapore Polytechnic. We were given a pre-written script and were then tasked to create an animatic without having watched the film. Hence, you could see varying interpretations from all the students during our class showcase at the end of the term.
All the artwork, compositing and sound design were done by me.
KAT AND J
PERSONAL PRACTICE
A short animation of my Death Cupid characters Katherine and Jason. Here, I practice animating with some key animating principles, like "squash and stretch" and "anticipation".
FIGHT SCENES
PERSONAL PRACTICE
In these earlier shorts, I challenge myself to manually add lighting to each frame, and try my hand at animating dynamic fight scenes without using any references. it was my first time animating a full fight animation too. These are just 2 clips from the whole animation, because the rest is admittedly... subpar. But I won't beat myself up too much over it, as I did rush it in 2 days and got impatient towards the middle. Either way, a great learning experience!
All effects and camera movements are made in Clip Studio Paint.
3D WALK CYCLE
SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT
VIDEO EDITING
I love cycling and adventuring to hidden gems in Singapore during my free time. I love documenting my trips, and often share them with my followers on Instagram in the form of short music videos. I also run my own baking business, so often times I have to make promotional videos to market new services and products. For these projects, I use After Effects for more motion-graphic-heavy videos, and Capcut for more vlogger style videos.
