TektonTV Behind the Scenes: Mitch Eaten By Monster

We made an offer on TektonTV to give "how to" overviews of scenes from our vids. One reader requested a how-to on a scene used at the end of a couple of vids where ProfMTH (Mitch) is eaten by a monster. You can see this at the end in the following vid:

The process here was rather simple, but it's also a good example of how to get certain complex things done in these vids. Unfortunately, since this was an early vid, I had not yet got the idea of saving all the old elements for later re-use and demonstration, so I only have finished graphics to illustrate, starting with the base graphic:

When the monster eats Mitch, certain elements in this scene will remain the same -- the background, and the bulk of the monster. What moves? The monster's mouth, his tongue, and Mitch himself flying into the monster's mouth. Since the majority of the scene does not move, it is far more economical to add in the things which do move. 

So what I do is create a potpourri of miscellaneous “parts” – the monster’s open mouth (not his whole body), the monster’s tongue, and Flying Mitch.

The open mouth is designed to simply be slapped on top of the monster as he stands there. The tongue can be cut, copied, and pasted to any length needed. Then we have the separate drawing of Mitch as he's being eaten. 

First, the monster's mouth pasted on. I can size adjust the layer that the mouth belongs to, if it doesn't quite fit, and also erase anything that sticks out too much, before I anchor it to the scene.

Then we add in the tongue. I had to do this twice, copying and pasting more of its length so that it could reach Mitch.

At this point I then erase the standing Mitch and part of the tongue, and replace it with the flying Mitch. Then I repaste in the end of the tongue, from Flying Mitch to the other end of the tongue.

Then, at the end, we're back to the monster with his mouth closed. For this I didn't need to remove everything I had added; I just took an earlier picture from the vid and erased Mitch.

That's how it was done. Bon appetit!