001
Sidi of the Skies
Created by
Sailesh Gopalan
Assisted by
Derek Domnic Dsouza
Creator's Note:
Anime has played a massive role in my art journey, and I’ve always wanted to get better at emulating its look and feel with my own animation. Larger projects have their own limitations with styles, timelines, and experimentation, so it felt liberating to take my own time and explore all the different aspects of an animated shot that make it possible to achieve that look.
Naturally, “anime” is a vast umbrella of countless different styles, but I’ve always been intrigued by the different components – like its line-work, lighting, finesse, etc – that make it instantly recognisable. It was especially fun to adopt the industry-specific workflow and techniques (with the help of some amazing insights and tutorials by accomplished animators online) to achieve this tiny-but-fulfilling shot.
I would usually start an animation with a completely rough pass to get the general idea and motion right. However, caught up in the spirit of experimentation, I started drawing a fully detailed character, and before I knew it I had drawn most of the poses. It also didn’t help that I had no idea in place when I began.
Naturally, there was a lot of fixing and editing to do later, but the basic animation was ready. I believe I had the entire rough animation and clean-up done within a day, which gave us a lot of time to work on flourishes and touch-ups in comp.
When we think of the look and feel of ‘anime', backgrounds often play a huge role. They're always so detailed, extensive, and have a particular finish that we've always wanted to emulate. For years now, anime studios have been incorporating a 3D workflow into their backgrounds, which really helps elevate their scenes to a whole new level, so we thought to do something similar.
Through this experiment, it was fun to try out a workflow where we could take assets painted in 2D and set them in a 3D space without making them seem flat. Another enjoyable experience was creating the dramatic sky, which anime in general is known for.