I'm no Bill Wray (who, of all the living background artists, fucking rules) by any stretch but, with the small number of backgrounds this film requires compared to my first two, I've been having a bit more fun with the details and texturing. Use your eyes for looking at them!
I wanted these to be quite loose and playful (adorable li'l scamp that I am). Beginning with sketches, I overlaid colours and textures for each background element, using Photoshop's warp and lighting tools to create a contoured effect when necessary.
Against these backgrounds the character animation comes off as a little too stark. I've decided to soften the look by colouring in the black outlines and applying lighting and gradients to the flat colours. This really goes a long way toward selling that the characters are inhabitants of the environment I've created.
As my version of After Effects doesn't quite nail the lighting effect I'm after this means I've been having to go through every frame of character animation and make the changes manually. It adds a lot to the post-production but the schedule I outlined at the beginning of May left some leeway and I'm still confident that I'll get the film finished before July. I think it's worth the extra effort.
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