The premise for this personal project was simple but daunting: create a 5-10 second animated scene from scratch, every single day, for 30 days. The critical constraint was that I had strictly one hour per day. At the start, the “blank canvas” was my biggest adversary. The pressure to produce something worthwhile in sixty minutes felt paralysing, and I wasn’t just battling the clock; I was battling the expectation of perfection. My goal was to break through the hesitation of starting and force myself to execute ideas rapidly without overthinking.
I used Adobe Illustrator to draw every scene from scratch. A key part of the process was planning what i wanted to animated while I was still drawing; I would decide what elements needed to move and separate the artwork into seperate layers accordingly. Once the .ai files were imported into After Effects, I could animate each layer individually. One of the biggest advantages of this workflow is the live integration between the AfterEffects and Illustrator. I could keep both files open, and any adjustments I made to the Illustrator artwork would automatically update in my active After Effects project which was great.
With no pre-planned storyboard, I had to pull inspiration from my immediate reality. The topics became a diary of my day-to-day life, ranging from something interesting I saw on TV or a peculiar scene on the street, to topics discussed with my son or random fleeting thoughts.
Some days I just created things for the sake of experimenting with a particular technique, such figuring out different ways to create smoke effects or fluid dynamics:
As I got used to the daily rhythm, the process became much faster. I eventually started streaming my one-hour sessions on Twitch and Discord. This was a great way to test my skills, as I started taking input from viewers and animating their ideas live. I ended up doing more than the original 30 animations, adding a few extra ones during the streams because the interaction made the work more enjoyable.
The biggest lesson was how helpful the one-hour limit actually was. At first, it felt restrictive, but eventually, it helped me realise that I didn’t need to be perfect; I just needed to get the idea down. This experience has even changed how I view large-scale projects in my professional work as well, I no longer see a month-long timeline as a single daunting mountain; instead, I’m able to break it down into manageable blocks. I have a realistic understanding of exactly what I can achieve in a specific timeframe so I can look at a three-hour window, determine exactly how much I can chip away at the larger goal, and just execute.
On a technical level, my workflow improved significantly. I developed better muscle memory for hotkeys, organised my files more efficiently, and learned to trust my ability to build something from nothing. It was a great exercise that I plan to try again with other skills, like illustration or font design.
Below, you will find the rest of my daily animations, I ended up overshooting and creating 40 instead of the preplanned 30 over the course of the month.