Space Sailor-1 is a story that follows Laika, the first dog sent into space by the Soviets. This story is told from the perspective of Laika and how she might of tried to make sense of the strange cosmic sights she saw around her and relate it to her home.
This was completed as a team project for my final year of study in Yoobee Colleges Bachelor of Animation. Below is a combination of my work in this project, ranging from concept art to 3D modelling, XGen fur creation, background art, VFX, and compositing.
Concept art created in the pre-production stage of the project.
My classmate made the 3D model for Laika, which I added fur to using XGen in Maya. My team decided we wanted semi-realistic fur that seems fluffy but also clumpy and rigid. We liked the style of two animated shorts in particular; After the Rain (Omeleto, 2020) and The Short Story of a fox and Mouse (ESMA Movies, 2017) for the slightly restricted and bristle-like movement of the fur.
I modelled the city scene off reference photos of buildings in Munich in the 1940-50s.
I also created a simple model of a car based off models driven at the time. My team wanted to create a link to home for Laika, and show things she might have seen as a stray dog before she was sent to space.
I also created a simple model of a car based off models driven at the time. My team wanted to create a link to home for Laika, and show things she might have seen as a stray dog before she was sent to space.
Images showing the city model in development and the layout.
Lighting Tests for the city scene.
Pre-vis stage using a team members storyboard panels as placeholders on top of the final background.
I created the aurora in After Effects using a 'fractal noise' effect. Fractal noise can then be set to lines/tangents, which simulates wavy lines that move automatically. This effect can then be tweaked and partially masked-off to get the desired base shape for the aurora.
One scene in our animation required a space-view model of the earth, which I created using public domain satellite photos for the texture.
The final collaborative project.