CRABSOURCING
This animation was composed of 78 drawings of crabs. Aside from the first one, they were drawn by Pratt students, personal friends, internet acquaintances, and random Tumblr users, and one was by my dad.
The Assignment
For instructions, I showed people this drawing I did of a crab and asked them to doodle me a crab in similar fashion. I encouraged them to do their own spin on it, but made it clear that they shouldn't put too much effort in or take too long with it. People put varying degrees of polish into their drawings regardless. I told everyone from the start that their drawing would be used as a frame of animation, that it would be put online, and that they would be credited.
Keeping the instructions loose helped me get more submissions, especially when it came to internet strangers, but this meant the results were harder to control. In the end, it made for a more interesting animation anyway. I thought about all the variables that arose from people's differing interpretations, and decided to focus on the placement of the claws, arranging the drawings in order of claw position. I edited the crabs to sit on top of each other with their centers in the same place so that the things moving most would be the claws. Persistence of vision then makes it seem as though the claws are moving rather than just flashing between positions.
Submission Gallery
Friends
Online Friends and Mutuals
Tumblr Users
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