Researching

Muybridge has taken many photographs of animals, but in my opinion the bird images are probably the most interesting ones, as I believe that there are hardly more elegant movements than the lightning-fast wing beats of birds of prey. The model for my animation was the following short black and white video.

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Realization

Although the quality of the photos was not the best, compared to today's digital cameras, it was quite sufficient to capture the different shapes of the wings and the correct position of the bird. I decided to take nine different screenshots from the video to get a smooth and shapely animation, to then reproduce the eagle's postures as accurately as possible in Adobe Photoshop.

Click on the image below to see a GIF of the flying eagles

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Polishing

The compositing and looping of the flight cycle was then accomplished in After Effects and the entire animation was finalized in a short video. With the inclusion of a simple moving background and the shadow of the eagle on the ground, my bird animation study came to a satisfying end.