From Sketch to Screen
Building a Universe
I had no idea what to do with my YouTube channel until now. How about a satire of internet culture? An unpredictable web series whose content and format versatility can only be matched by the subject it depicts: the Internet.
This giant electronic pool of human thoughts, shapeless and boundless, like space needs a vessel for exploration.
From deep philosophical thoughts, to endless stream of meme coins, AI chat bots wanting to take over the world, and cat videos, it has all we need to tell good stories.
But first things first, let’s build the ship used in the series.
Building Visual Unity: The Foundational Shot
At this point in time, the storyboard and animatic for this short anime are completed, allowing for a rough version to be watched before proceeding any further. Some voice recordings and basic lip-syncing have been added, setting the stage for the next phase of production.
Just in case:
Storyboard — in its simplest terms, is a series of comic-like panels that visually outline a movie. Each panel represents a specific shot or scene in the film.
Animatic — is a moving sequence created from the storyboard’s still images, but recorded so it looks like a still image movie with dialogue, and sound effects. It helps detect if narration flows naturally before proceeding any further…
Since I cannot reveal the actual plot, I’ve created a brief animatic version for this article. This will allow you to get a sense of its style and tone.
Animatic: When artist and accountant shake hands
It also serves as a tool for managing drawing resources, helping us determine the required drawings and quantities. If we were to use these 3 shots from above, we would have to produce the following:
- a close-up background of a computer screen
- one wider background for an establishing shot (the subject of this article)
- 2 characters with various key head angles. Since the main character is seated at a desk and the droid has no legs, there would be no walking animation which can be time consuming.
By adjusting the animatic, adding or removing elements, we can have direct control over factors such as time, cost, and narration. These aspects are interconnected and influence each other.
Art and accounting in one tool, if I may.
In our case, the approved animatic uses different portions of this background — let’s call it the operational room — so it is safe to invest time in it now.
I had preferred not to share the actually animatic, doing so would reveal key elements prematurely, so all you’ll have to do is to wait for the next YouTube video release.
If you want to be notified, you can either subscribe to the channel or sign up for the newsletter.
Foundational role
In addition to being used many times throughout the series, the operation room we are about to design will have a foundational role. Because it will establish the overall design for the entire ship interior.
All other backgrounds will draw inspiration from it, ensuring visual consistency throughout the show.
Think of it as a parent background from which child backgrounds inherit design properties.
By designing smaller backgrounds based on this main one, we can ensure consistency and efficiency. Whether it’s a door close-up or a computer screen (seen in the animatic), they would all share the same visual language.
Disclaimer
During this stage, away from the trickery of social validation, we will stay away from any social media activity, to get our dopamine level as low as possible. This may result in losing few online friends due to slow message response… which will bring our friends count to … -5 .
But that is fine, we will do it for a noble cause, bring joy to the millions… well thousand.. ok hundreds of followers for whom entertainment is to the soul what food is to the body. Lets do it.
From lines to local color
We will start by extracting the background used in the animatic. While using line art is an efficient way to design, adding some local colors to make the shapes stand out will improve readability. This will help us make better design choices, and see more clearly how various pieces — machinery and other electronics gear— are connected to each other. It needs to feel as if it would function in the real world.
Although this is for an anime and not intended to be constructed by a 3D artist, it is important to maintain the discipline similar to video game pre-production art. In this process, every design should make sense in terms of volume and space. Additionally, these basic material identification colors will also impact composition (because it makes some shapes more apparent ), so this must be done with care.
In this sketch evolution you can see that adding this red local color helps distinguish better between the main vertical cylinder and the gray pipes. By doing so, we are breaking down our initial main gray shape into 3 distinct areas: the left gray pipe area, the red cylinder in the center, and the right gray pipe area.
General note on rhythm
Rhythm refers to the comparative area occupied by one shape in relation to another. The presence of a large-shaped element necessitates the presence of a smaller-shaped element.
- Consider the diameter of the gray pipes, which is typically 10 to 20 times thinner than the main red cylinder. The red cylinder only feels imposing in relation to smaller element surrounding it.
- contrary to this, our 3 newly created shapes (areas) have widths that are almost similar (see illustration below), which is not ideal. We will need to adjust this later on.
Adding the ceiling
Given that this background will serve as the foundational reference, we must capture an extensive level of detail in its design.
And since there will be some upshot angle where the camera is under the subjects, looking upwards, we are extending the frame to bring more details to the ceiling.
As we can see, the ceiling’s 30-degree inclination influences the shape of the main window, which can be seen directly behind the main character. This architectural feature not only impacts the composition of the shot but also influences the portrayal of the character in the foreground.
To make important design decisions, the main character layer is often toggled on and off, allowing us to see how the background looks in the context of the shot composition. Even if we are mostly focusing on the background, we must keep an eye on the overall scenery.
Ceiling Conundrum: To Open or Not to Open?
As a result of these adjustments, a question arises: should the ceiling remain closed, or should a large window offer glimpses of space beyond?
Choosing the latter option would further connect the interior of the ship to its exterior. It would also provide greater flexibility in determining what could be seen behind the characters during these upshot angles.
In a way, this approach would create a moving or changing background behind the characters, tailored to suit their actions or facial expressions.
We can envision it as a morphing background that adapts or transforms itself, shifting from chaotic space warfare to a scenery of peaceful stars. This versatility would enhances, balances, or complements whatever is happening in the foreground.
And every aspect in the design even if is treated with a realism — for credibility — should be considered for its narrative and comedic possibilities.
Imagine the comedic effect of a character’s face deeply lost in thought while a space war begins behind them, completely unnoticed. By the time they turn back, the conflict is over, with ships destroyed leaving no trace, as if nothing ever happened — similar to the cutaway gags found in shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, or South Park
So let’s go with the ceiling window. But, in order to focus our attention on the interior design, we will keep it dark without much going on so it does not distract us from the interior design work.
Later on, I tested several outdoor scenery options on the side windows. The same results can be applied to the ceiling windows as well.
As seen in the image above, three different window states have been developed. While they are all distinct in terms scenery and lighting, they maintain visual harmony with the interior.
The animation itself will be relatively simple: a series of elements scrolling or slowly moving in and out of the window frame.
However, achieving convincing lighting effects may require more sophisticated techniques and the use of other software, such as Da Vinci Resolve and Fusion.
Here is a quick recap and overall evolution up until now.
From Brutalist to Machinist: The Life-Saving Stroke
There were too many unsuccessful attempts to connect this brutalist-looking pillar to the ceiling.
The junction area between the top part of the pillar and the ceiling windows created a lot of conflict. It was visually too busy and clumsy.
The problem lay in my initial assumption that this had to be a supporting pillar but then I started to wonder: if all the possible options failed... could the problem be the goal itself ?
So, the question shifted from ‘how to attach this pillar to the ceiling?’ to ‘why do you need to attach this to the ceiling?
This thinking shift came about by pure accident when I decided I could no longer waste time on this and decided to try to see what it would look like if I simply remove the pillar.
In an attempt to do so, I painted a first horizontal stroke, which created an empty horizontal space, giving the visual impression that the pillar was cut in half. And that impression became a revelation.
I stopped right there, staring at this half-cut pillar, that I realized, was no longer a pillar but instead had become a sort of levitating block which got me quite excited.
From there, the goal itself — connecting the former pillar to the ceiling — became irrelevant as the pillar would now be a levitating piece of machinery, adding a Moebius (Jean Giraud) tone to the design, and the problem was solved.
A single paint stroke has outperformed the result of several days of work.
More details where then added, refining the transformation from the brutalist pillar to a machine-like gear.
See you on the other side
One shot of the animatic shows an elevator door in this right area. At one point, our main character will turn his head to look at this elevator door as he expects an other character (the droid) to enter the room. The following shows the approximate position of the elevator door. It is located off to the side, in the orange section that has not yet been designed.
Our focus will now be on developing the green area to serve as a cohesive space related to access.
So, let’s see what we can come up with.
Up until step 06 the sketches give the impression of a gateway leading to another set of operation rooms or machinery rooms similar to the one we are working on right now. This would be a safe option, but may lack in innovation.
Step 07, however, suggests an interesting new direction.
Instead of a conventional passageway, it feels like one of these vibrant public places filled with bright signs and directional cues. In addition to its function in access and transit, it could also provide the crew with spaces for entertainment during off-work hours. To explore this narrative option further, additional research was conducted on real-world vessels such as submarines and aircraft carriers.
The above documentary shows us that in addition to the area dedicated to work, vessels such as aircraft carriers, for example, have areas that are dedicated to boost the morale of the crew. These can include markets, vending machines and some even have an actual Starbucks to recreate a sense of home like feel which can boost the crew’s morale.
Knowing well that psychological weakness among the crew could lead to fatal mistakes, the necessity to implement such features is neither fancy nor a luxury, but an absolute necessity.
So the idea of a transit areas that also includes entertainment-related activities is to be seriously considered. However, we still consider the previous direction (step 06) of a more utilitarian-looking gateway to be valid. Since both options have merit, I decided to explore both.
We can put these ideas in competition with each other to determine which one will ultimately prevail and be selected for further development.
The following shows the evolution of these two distinct ideas. Let’s refer to them as:
A, the Gateway to Operations and B, the Luminescent Gateway to Transit
So Between A, the Gateway to operations and B, the Luminescent Gateway to Transit, who wins?
Since both versions seem to have their distinctive qualities, we used some photoshop mask techniques to mix both and bring the qualities of each into one single image.
The final version retains these special green light areas, while still incorporating some utilitarian-like devices that echo well with some elements found on the left side. It effectively creates a new area while maintaining visual language consistency throughout.
Final thoughts
The overall design achieves a good balance between visual style and its potential for story telling. It embodies a bit of back story of its own which is also what the design process is all about. It will help the story writing flow more naturally. And I believe the background or environment story should be treated with as much care as character development.
After all, characters relate to their environment and even a thoroughly developed character evolving in a poorly defined environment will lose much of it credibility. Since a character and their environment are interrelated.
Wulirocks is a brand for a polymorph business. Ranging from art, entertainment to blockchain development, with the desire to explore new ways of doing business and marketing, where creative mind are more valued than technical knowledge. All in a cohesive appealing brand, for all.
If you’re interested in discussing potential business partnerships, collaborations, or have any ideas to share, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to contact me through contact@wuli.rocks to explore how we can work together to bring creative visions to life. Let’s connect and bring our ideas to the next level!
