Animation Adventure Begins!

This is my first attempt ever at animation. The paper figures took about 10 minutes each to make. It's just a test, to work out how this animation thing works!

I decided to make another very fast, thrown together animation of about a minute or less. I gave myself a deadline of about a week. I know that deadline is insane for animating, and I like that it's insane, but the above 3 second animation took me about an hour to make and half of that was learning the software, so I think I can do it. It's like the animation version of gesture sketching. When you have a very short amount of time to finish something, you really hone in on what is important. Here is a sneak preview of the storyboard and sound:

This little animation is the first part of a longer story. The story has elements from mythology, like the ferryman that takes the dead across the river styx. The girl will have archetypal elements of Persephone and Orpheus, and the story will be somewhat inspired by the ancient myth of Ishtar's descent into the underworld. This scene might not make the cut, as it's a little unoriginal.  

P.S.: sounddogs.com is awesome, and where I found all the sound and music for this piece. Next time I'd like to use at least some of my own sound.