Helianthus
A short animation created by a studio of amazing talented animators and illustrators, who by using their abilities illustrate the story of a metaphor of divorce and the effects on the family involved. This story portrays the sun and moon as animal-like creatures fighting for control and power, and the Moon (mother) wins the battle, shooting the Sun (father) down. This sends the world into a spiral of a cold winter, slowly freezing everything to death around them. The protagonist of the story, the kid, is seen taking care of the sunflower plant that their father left for them, and throughout the story, they have to travel with the moon to save their sunflower and fix the world, bringing the sun back, as the planet can’t survive without the Sun. Many emotions and experiences happen on this journey, and it leads to confrontation and interaction at the end. Will they fight again? Or will they co-parent the child and take responsibility together?
My Contributions:
A lot of work went into this project, and I was able to implement a lot of my skills in different areas. This is just the work I did that went toward the production of this short animated film. I worked on the Visual Development section, creating different character and background concepts, and designs. I also animated a large chunk of the animation as well, creating mostly the Moon, and some of the Sun, with a dash of animating the kid. In addition to this, I did a lot of coloring as well of these renditions and some Visual SFX throughout, adding snow and glow to the Moon and Sun.
Expressions - Kid
Expressions - Moon
Expressions - Sun
Character - Original Concepts
Moon - Concept 1
Moon - Concept 2
Moon - Concept 3
Field - Concept
River - Concept
Sun in Pond - Concept
Pond - Concept
River Step - Concept 1
River Step - Concept 2
River Step - Concept 3
Moon Sigh - Rough
Kid - Rough
Moon and Kid - Rough
Moon - Roughs and Coloring (The file for the rough sketches of this animation section was too big to upload, but I animated all of the roughs except one frame section, which was the full-body turn shot. I colored that section instead, and tried to fix style matching.)
Moon and Sun - Rough
Moon - Rough
Moon and Sun - Roughs and Coloring