Before creating my flipbook I decided to create a plan of the stages that I would do for each page. The design I chose was a fire slowly growing to then have smoke appear and become bigger as it got darker. I chose this design as it allowed me to show a sense of movement but also the sense of an image appearing slowly. I decided to use quite a lot of mark making in my design which slowly appeared throughout each page.

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When creating my Flipbook there were many requirements I needed to consider. The first being the type of printmaking I would use to create my flipbook. The style I used was intaglio. For this I took an aluminium sheet and used a sharp tool to etch my design. The size of the sheet was A6 and this was because it was a requirement to create the flipbook as an A6 size. This allowed for a more fluent flipbook that was easier to handle and flip each page. For each step in my design I would etch it out and apply the ink quite thick (especially in the area I had etched) using a stippling paintbrush. The stippling motion allowed the ink to get right in the grooves of the aluminium sheet to create a better print. I then used a cloth, a piece of paper and a piece of tracing paper to slowly remove the ink from the sheet, leaving the ink in the grooves. While I was doing this I had a damp piece of paper slowly drying. The slightly damp paper allowed the ink to be drawn out of the aluminium when pressed together through a machine and printed onto the paper creating the image.

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I repeated these steps adding a little to my design at a time to slowly build my final image. I ended up with just over 20 pages to my flipbook which meets the requirements needed for a successful animation. I used mark making throughout the prints to slowly show where the smoke gets thicker as a fire burns. I feel this looks very effective in my flipbook and clearly shows the animation I wanted to portray.

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I slightly adapted my design while creating my flipbook to show the fire growing more slowly. I feel this allowed me to show my original idea of the fire slowly growing more effectively. I also added the mark making in stages throughout the pages to show a more fluid movement rather than it all of a sudden appearing at the end.

Originally I wasn't going to add colour to my flipbook but decided that the orange of the fire would stand out well against the thick black smoke. When adding colour I used pencil crayon however some of my print's were quite dark not allowing the colour to be seen as well as I would of liked.

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Not all print's went as well as others causing some to be lighter in colour however I feel this adds an eerie vibe to the flipbook. I like the overall effect my flipbook has as it gets darker and more dense as it goes on. Some print's had to be repeated as there were many factors which stopped some print's from working as well as others. I have a few print's that ended up lighter so weren't used and also some with distinct water marks from the paper being too wet. I decided these were best left out of my final flipbook as I wanted it to be the best it could be.

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I feel that I developed print making skills well as it isn't my most favourite form of art work. Learning new skills to create an effective animation in my flipbook was a main goal and I feel I achieved this. If I was to do this again I would add less mark making to the fire to show distinct layers as it gets bigger. I feel this would allow for a more realistic looking fire.