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Volume 3,Issue 8

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26 September 2025

External Environment and Personal Growth in Anthropomorphic Animation: A Practice-Based Study Through Nurture

Zihao Zeng*
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1 Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne 3205, VIC, Australia
LNE 2025 , 3(8), 192–199; https://doi.org/10.18063/LNE.v3i8.846
© 2025 by the Author. Licensee Whioce Publishing, Singapore. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Plants sustain themselves by rooting and blooming, providing strong and natural parallels to human persistence and mental growth. However, animation research has largely focused on animal characters, leaving the narrative strength of plant anthropomorphism unexplored. This practice-based study created a 2D animated short film to illustrate what happens to a person facing neglect and lack of resources. We discovered that plant biological qualities offer an intuitive means to depict psychological conflict and self-realization. It demonstrates how 2D animation can convert plant properties into metaphors of resilience and personal development. The results are valuable to the animators, educators, and researchers, as they can use the proven, symbolic model that will allow children and other young viewers to realize how to discover inner power in the face of adversity and achieve self-development independently.

Keywords
Anthropomorphic design
Metaphorical narrative
Environmental animation
Practice-based research
Children’s education
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