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Animation Filmmaker & Illustrator
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When the Moon is infected with invading aliens, Aquarius and Taurus must cure their friend before he’s entirely colonized. Inspired by Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon, Moon's Malady is a 3-minute hybrid 2D and 3D animated short.
OFFICIAL TRAILER
COLOR STORY AND DEVELOPMENT
The film’s color palette is heavily influenced by early film colorization processes, particularly the tinted dyes used in silent-era films and the red-and-green two-strip Cinecolor process. The Moon and the Zodiacs are rendered in warm-biased blues and golds, while the aliens exist in colder, green and red-leaning tones. The Moon’s sickness is visually expressed through a gradual color shift from warm yellow to an unsettling cold green.
Color Script
Final Color Shift of the Moon and Background
CHARACTER DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
The Moon
The guiding principle for the Moon was inspiration from the iconic visual of the man in the moon from Méliès’ classic. The end design highlights younger features like big eyes. This decision was made to emphasize the negative effect the aliens have on the Moon. As their colonization advances, the Moon ages and looses his warm, soft yellow for a garish, cold teal.
Responsible for Moon from development to final turn around
3D MODELING AND ASSETS
Gremaliens
The aliens required more design consideration, as they are the only characters that were meant for 3D. With respect to rigging and modeling needs, the alien design that was developed is one based of gremlins and imps- earning the colloquial name “gremaliens”.
Responsible for character design and turnaround
Modeling, rigging, and texturing by Randall Houser : Randall's Portfolio
Pose tests by Randall Houser : Randall's Portfolio
Gremalien animation test by Randall Houser : Randall's Portfolio
Animatic
Responsible for animatic
Rough
Final Render
Rough, Final, and Lighting by Randall Houser : Randall's Portfolio
3D ASSET DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION
Environments and Set Design
The environments of the alien world is meant to be nonsensical and other worldly, full of impossible perspective and towering structures. They are also heavily influenced by Méliès’ films, and the Belle Epoch architecture which was en vogue Méliès’ time. Like the sets in his films, the majority of the environments are flat pieces of Maya geometry that were then textured with 3D forms painted on them in a theatrically artificial style.
Grisaille
Color Overlay
Final Composite, Lighting, and Render
Responsible for design and render
Model and lighting by Randall Houser : Randall's Portfolio
To mimic the process of Méliès’ films being shot in black and white and hand colored frame-by-frame with translucent dye, the flat theater set style buildings were rendered in grayscale and colored with a saturated watercolor brush on an overlay layer.
Responsible for thumbnails to final renders
Responsible for missile design and render
Asset model by Randall Houser : Randall's Portfolio
Asset model by Randall Houser : Randall's Portfolio
Responsible for initial design of in the round bar model
Asset model, animation, and lighting by Randall Houser : Randall's Portfolio
FILM STILLS
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