Even though the mammoth animation did work well on screen, it didn’t work at all in its desired device. The walking-cycle was made for a Daedaleum (”wheel of the devil”), or the anthropic Zoetrope (”wheel of life”).

It’s project by Rotopolpress, commissioned by group of local museums. The daedaleum is, technically, such a gnarly animation-gadget, that the more fluent and detailed the animation by itself, the less it will work in the device. The tiny printsize doesn’t make it better, too. I tried fixing it by adding contrast, a lot of contrast. I almost tripled the lineweight, and added shadows…

Nothing! Regarding a Zoetrope it’s all about contrast, but more importantly moving shapes. The horse animation, which we had for reference, is not even a full loop. It only shows a third of the full cycle, but the bouncing shape, the flinging of limbs just does its job. A mammoth does not prance around its prehistoric meadows like a young gazelle… It’s, seen through the daedaleum, just a square! Argh, back to the drawing board and making it as simple and rough as possible.
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