Concept Art + Introduction

 Hello there! This is the start of my production blog for my animated capstone film in the making called DreamWalker. It's about a young boy that learns to face the monster in his nightmares with the help of a silver fox: his stuffed animal that comes to life in his dream. The idea is somewhat personal to me as I too used to be plagued with nightmares, and it was only when I began to address the underlying anxiety fueling them that they began to subside. 

First are some preliminary concept sketches I made a while back. One is of the fox character who I had fun drawing, and the other is of the child, who was a little bit of a challenge to me. Although the sketches are rough, I like a challenge and plan to practice sketching him a bit more before I nail down his official design. 

Next I played around with the fox character's colors to see which combination I liked best. I knew I wanted them to be silver or gray with purple eyes or a slight purple tint to the fur to add a sense of whimsy and power. I ended up choosing the top left option, as I wanted the character to have lighter fur to contrast with the monster: an inky black creature with red eyes.

Speaking of which, here's some concept art for the monster. Like I said, I knew from the start I wanted it to simply be a black silhouette with red eyes. I played around with different forms a little, making sure it looked sharp and dangerous in each one. My pre-production professor pointed out that these are all a little stocky so I plan to make the final version more serpentine (most likely similar to the bottom right creature just with a more lanky body). I'll be sure to post its animation reference upon completion. 

This is concept art of the Nightmare Woods, the main setting of the film. I mainly wanted its color scheme to be dark with an eery red lighting bleeding through the branches, making it as spooky and unsettling as I could. I experimented with some brushes a little which gave the trees a kind of roughly painted look which I like. I will lighten the bottom a bit when doing the backgrounds so the monster stands out from it more but other than that I feel like this turned out pretty well. 

Lastly we have a mock up poster for the film featuring the silver fox character. I may have gotten a little carried away with the glowing effects and shading but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun. 


Anyway, thank you for reading this blog! If you're interested I also have an Instagram for this film too, which you can find by clicking here! I will be posting here every friday (and perhaps on other days too if I have some free time) so be sure to stay tuned!