BLADE GIRL
Art Direction, Animation, VFX by Phillip Wong
Original Illustration by Seth St.Pierre
Original Illustration by Seth St.Pierre
I decided to do a fun little side project and put together a simple animation loop using some art from one of my talented illustrator friends and collaborator Seth St.Pierre. The original illustration was created by Seth as part of a mural commissioned by Vault of Midnight for their new Grand Rapids, MI store.
Given more time I would have added extras like separating the hair to flow more naturally and added more subtle movements to the jacket. Overall the process was super fun and a nice exercise on how to bring motion and depth to a static image.
THE PROCESS
Original Illustration by Seth St.Pierre
Flattened art was cut, reworked and prepped into separate layers in Photoshop / Illustrator. The project was then imported to AfterEffects for animation.
The Sword layer was given a slight transparency and a basic distortion effect was added to the hair.
The original dust clouds were removed and replaced wiith some particle emitters.
A bank of repeating overhead lights were added as the main source of motion reference. A highlight reflection was also added to the blade.
More particles were added to the background and foreground to add more layers of motion and energy to the scene.
Additional lighting effects, glow and blade shimmers.
Final pass of color / levels adjusment is added along with some fake depth of field, subtle screen pixelation and slight RGB warping to give it all a more cinematic feel.
