Shadows
Situation
Created for Canadian Forces Morale and Welfare Services, Shadows was built around a script that explored difficult and emotional experiences with honesty and care. The goal was to translate that story into a visual form that could carry the same weight while remaining accessible to the audience.
The Challenge
The challenge was capturing something deeply human without overcomplicating or softening it. The visuals needed to feel expressive and emotionally direct, while supporting the pacing and tone of the narrative. It also required finding the right balance between illustration and animation, ensuring the style could hold up across key moments without losing impact.
What Was Done
I led the creative and art direction, while also working hands-on across the full production. This included developing the visual style, animating key sequences, shaping the pacing, and handling the music and voiceover mix to support the tone of the piece.
On the technical side, I built the animation workflow by rigging characters and creating custom controls for facial movement, head turns, and secondary motion. This allowed the animation to stay true to the original illustrations while delivering the level of expression the story required.
The result is a piece that feels cohesive and emotionally grounded, where direction, craft, and execution all work together to support the narrative.
Style frame animation
Organic shapes and patterns are used in conjunction with bespoke illustrations to emphasize the visceral experiene of these real life moments.
The sample below is a marriage of stillness and motion. These scenes have an immediately striking quality that’ll lure you in upon first glance.
Character development
The artstyle in this project stands in the middle ground between 2D and 3D animation. It provides a unique feel and texture, which is something that viewers would love to watch.
Character animation
To achieve the proposed look as animation, a modified animation pipeline was implemented by introducing a couple new tools. These tools allowed us to create the character animations more efficiently. The illustrations were rigged then imported and animated in After Effects with bespoke controls for facial animation, head turning, and hair dynamics. With this workflow we were able to capture the quality and emotion of the original illustrations.
