Be Yourself
Roles: Direction, Producing, Story, Layout, 3D Animation, 3D Asset Production
Box Boy is a 2D-3D hybrid animated film which revolves around a toy maker who’s struggle for inspiration leads him into a wonderful sky adventure with a boy who has a box on his head.
The film was crafted as a love letter to my art journey and how far I've made it. I was going into my senior year at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). As Filipino artist with dreams of becoming an animation professional, I followed that dream to Hong Kong and to Atlanta, leaving at the early stages of my engineering career. Life can take many turns, but we have to stick to that inner voice—our inner child—that always acts as an compass, pointing us to our north star and on to excitement and adventure.
As the director and producer, I got the chance to sink my teeth into a large production that underwent a full year's worth of changes to get to the point it's in now. I planned every facet of production from story to the unique art style, and hybrid animation with my talented team of about 40 artists. The production allowed me to connect friends from all over the world, working with students from the 3 SCAD locations, Hong Kong, Atlanta, and Savannah.
Early Concept art for Box Boy
Characters
The characters underwent some changes throughout the early stages of pre-production. The design changes focused on appeal and aimed to give the characters a distinct silhouette
New versus the old Toy Maker model sheet
New versus the old Box Boy model sheets
Early character development animation test for Box Boy
Creatures
The imaginative world of Box Boy involved the design of fantastical kite creatures, which also went through some major iterations. Originally, the creatures were more organic, but the art direction changes leaned towards a world that a child could conjure up with simple materials.
Fish Kite design by Sean Co, model, textures and sample renders by Adrian Ferma
Proof of Concept Composites
Below are combination of maya renders and some test composites done in Photoshop. Shots in the sky and in space had 2D Backgrounds, while the workshop shots were purely rendered in Maya. These were produced at the end of our production class as a test for how each sequence is gonna look.
Sample and Composites were a collaborative effort between the Box Boy Crew. Raven Chau (BG Matte Paintings), Austin Grant (3D set and lighting), Yim Lamlertkerdkan (3D modeling, textures and lighting), Sean Co (Prop Design), and myself (Direction and 2D effects and Character Posing).
Production Test Composite by film Crew (see names above)
Original style Frame by Art Director Raven Chau