Making of: Blizzard children

I have been watching some of Koji Yamamura's work lately and I've been struck by his style. When I was reading a piece on him, something he said caught my eye:

“Digital art is becoming standard worldwide. But if everyone uses the same apps, there’ll be more works with a similar kind of feel. The key is to skilfully combine digital technology with existing techniques. If you’re satisfied with just one easy-to-use digital tool, you can end up closing down possibilities instead of opening them up.”

This really encouraged me to search further in trying out different materials when making animations.

For this particular animation I grabbed a piece of packing paper I had lying around and started to draw on it:

{{< figure src="/img/anims/snowstorm_bg_web.jpg" caption="The background, drawn on packing paper." >}}

I like that you can still see the creases in the paper, while at the same time being on a hill side.

The snowflakes are made by splashing black watercolour paint on 30 sheets of paper, Jackson Pollock style. I grouped them together based on the different shapes and sizes of the snowflakes, so when sequenced together, it wouldn't be totally random. There are three layers for the snow, composited interchangeably over each other to forgo any obvious looping.

{{< gallery >}} {{< figure src="/img/anims/snowstorm_pollock_web.jpg" >}} {{< figure src="/img/anims/snowstorm_pollock2_web.jpg" >}} {{< /gallery >}}

After scanning I inverted the colors so that the black splatters became white snowflakes.

The group of boys were discovered by coincidence. I knew I wanted a lantern in there and it was only after I had drawn a simple silhouet behind it that I saw the group coming together.

{{< figure src="/img/anims/snowstorm_boys_web.jpg" caption="Boys like tea stains." >}}

I animated both the lantern and the boys digitally in Krita. The boy layers have an overlay blend mode which causes them to become more like stains in the packing paper. All was then composited together in Opentoonz.

To enhance the atmosphere I added some sound this time.