WOLFWALKERS - Concept Art and Color Script
Worked with directors Tomm More and Ross Stewart as Scene Illustration Artist, Location Designer, Color Script Artist and Background Painter for their feature film "Wolfwalkers" from the 5 times Oscar's Academy nominated studio Cartoon Saloon.
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Some years ago I packed my brushes and headed to the green rolling hills of Ireland to join an incredible team of people to work in this precious gem. At first I joined the Scene Illustration, o Concept team, where I helped define the look of the forest and design the locations inside of it, as well as help define the style, and traditional pencil and watercolor technique with the team lead by Tomm and Ross. Later in production I designed Sequence Colour Scripts and Key Colour Backgrounds to establish the look and the methodology for the Background Colour Team. Here you can see a selection of some of the concepts I developed.
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ROBYN RUNNING - Inspired by the Dark Hedges from a trip to the north of Ireland, we were still trying to define the look of the forest, the graphic light and autumny colors while keeping the green wet feeling of Ireland. (which proved to be a challenge for all of us!) We were also exploring the characters in action and how to strike a graphic look moving in 3d space and this pose helped with that. I just loved drawing Robyn, inspired by the character poses of Sandra and the character team concepts.
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WATERFALL. Helping define the look of the waterfall was one of my favourite things in the film. Working with Maria and Ross from a physical maquette Ross had built, we dove to define the looser, wilder and more organic section of the film, the Wolfwalkers waterfall den, where watercolors are at their rawest and washes of color blend. Was a very iterative process where I let the watercolor do what it wanted, blending colors and shapes in beautiful ways that I would later on use on the final image. In this concept I also explored the characters and proposed the final wolf look for Robyn which made it into the film, as before she had a slightly different look. The whole film was a greatly collaborative effort where we were all exploring and proposing ideas!
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LOCATION DESIGN RAVINE - First sketches I did when I joined the Wolfwalkers concept team, or scene illustration. I set out to explore the forest as Robyn gets deeper into it. Her feelings and the scenery change and develop as we go further from the farmlands forest tamed by humans. I was trying to figure out how to make the forest feel older and more secret as you get deeper into it, as the areas untouched by humans were wilder, stronger and purer, with more and more ancient ruins from old wolfwalkers civilizations that had not been seen for centuries!
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Some tree trunks and branches studies I did to define the lush and magical aspect of the ravine. Inspired by a plein air painting trip to Wistman’s Wood in Dartmoor
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TRIPTYCH - At this time we were trying to find a graphic light to balance the very simple characters and BGs, with a very simple lighting on them, just enough to tell the story we needed in each shot. This image was conceived as a triptych illustration, established in a great storyboard panel by Iker Maidagan and Ariel Ries , with characters by Tomm More and some help from Ross Stewart. I often used small value studies like these to figure out the lighting structure to tell the story, in this case using the Hitchcock bar of light on them to have the girls “see without being seen”. I also did a concept close up to define the look of the magic ivy wall, exploring the FX look and progression and lighting.
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LOCATION DESIGN - Nearing production we settled to make some specific location designs for the Ravine, the innermost secret den of the Wolfwalker people. We tried to find landmarks that we could repeat in different scenes to get a feel of the evolution of the story. Ludo Gavillet and I designed maps, did sketches and color roughs and had a blast dreaming camera possibilities to craft the otherworldly and mystical side of these people, inspired by the art of Andy Goldsworthy. (I discovered this artist with the best family name ever thanks to Ross during production, don't miss the documentary about his art and life!).
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SEQUENCE COLOR SCRIPTS - Later in production, I helped out with some sequence color scripts to flesh out, from the rough color keys from Alice and Lily, the final approach the BGs will have in a specific sequence.
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All artwork copyright by Cartoon Saloon & Melusine Productions.
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