Another incredible year of TERROR, with illustration by Cryssy Cheung and animation by yours truly! We took extra care this year to craft a video store vibe, incorporating 3D elements with Cinema 4D, blended with 2D animation in After Effects. Cryssy and I worked together throughout the project to establish layout and animation boards and where and how to use 3D elements, and then coordinated details as I finalized each section of the piece. Sound design by the amazing audio folks at Paramount Network!
Awards
•3x3 Show No. 21: Honorable Mention
•2024 GEMA Awards North America (formerly Promax): GOLD in Art Direction & Design for Best Holiday/Seasonal/Special Event Design Promo
•2024 GEMA Awards Global (formerly Promax): BRONZE in Art Direction & Design for Best Holiday/Seasonal/Special Event Design Promo
I put this early animatic together to time out all of the motion and determine the appropriate transitions between each illustrative element. I included some completed illustrations by the amazing Cryssy Cheung, and I sketched out ideas for the remaining images based on my ideas about composition, lighting, and movement.
Each sequence required multiple ideation and timing passes. The normal process was for me to send a sketched idea to Cryssy, build an animatic incorporating her illustration, and then animate it with After Effects and, frequently, Cinema 4D.
In the case of Twister, I build out a 3D model of the scene with rough lighting suggestions, she illustrated on top of the renders while I created a rough movement animatic, and then I projected her illustrations back onto my 3D model in Cinema. I composited the renders in After Effects for the final result. Below, you can see the stages of our work, followed by the truck movement animatic.
The exterior look of the video store went through a lot of stages of ideation, starting with a quick photobash for composition, and then iterating work on lighting and mood until we nailed down the final look. Cryssy and I would pass the illustration back and forth, each working on top of it with our ideas about value, lighting, fonts, and style, until we ended up with the final shopfront.
