Renee
Harris
illustrator & 3D artist
Space Mates is a student led project at Massey University, as a part of our final year of Creative Media Production. It is a 3D animated short, with elements of 2D. We worked with TVNZ on Demand to create this project.
Space Mates is an animated sci-fi fantasy that follows the adventures of a steely young mechanic named Marama, and her optimistic robotic companion B.R.O (Bionics Relation Operator). On a quest through space to reach the Brightest Star and pursued by a corrupted Taniwha, they must bring balance back to the universe.
To realize this project in the space of only nine months, from conception to delivery, we opted to create a 90 second pilot preview that sets the scene and introduces the characters.
Space Mates is an animated sci-fi fantasy that follows the adventures of a steely young mechanic named Marama, and her optimistic robotic companion B.R.O (Bionics Relation Operator). On a quest through space to reach the Brightest Star and pursued by a corrupted Taniwha, they must bring balance back to the universe.
To realize this project in the space of only nine months, from conception to delivery, we opted to create a 90 second pilot preview that sets the scene and introduces the characters.
Roles:
Click role to jump to.
Art Lead:
- Concept visualisation, with a close hand in asset development and modelling.
- Helped develop visual style for the series, steering toward a 2D inspired aesthetic.
- Worked closely with our second year concept artist.
Concept Artist:
- Designed early concepts for the taniwha antagonist character.
- Designed the ship exterior, thumnailing and taking the final choice through several stages of refinement.
- Designed the interior of the ship around existing props.
Ship thumbnails.
Ship thumbnails 2.
Ship thumbnails 3.
Ship original concept.
Ship refined.
Space color exploration.
Taniwha concept.
Taniwha concept refined.
Ship interior concept (models by Bella Morelli and Stefan Roelofsz).
Character Modeller:
- Modelled Marama's face on existing topology. Modelled her hair.
- Modelled B.R.O's base mesh.
- Did a lot of general mesh clean up.
Texturing Lead:
- Defined a texture style, and created a pipeline for texturing and a texture image library.
- Textured the characters (Marama and B.R.O) and main assets such as the ship interior and large props.
Marama texture.
Marama head developments (co-modelled with Stefan Roelofsz. I modelled the face on existing topology, and modelled the hair. Texture by me).
B.R.O texture (co-modelled with Stefan Roelofsz).
Hologram table texture.
Couch console texture.
Textures created by processing and manually painting images in Photoshop to achieve a toon look.
Animator
- Animated a key shot with both main character rigs.
Render and Comp Artist:
- Lighted, rendered and comped character turntables and poses.
- Lighted, rendered and comped interior and exterior shots of the ship for use in the Space Mates concept art book.
Illustrator and Designer:
- Illustrated (and concepted) the background for the "2D Dimension" scene.
- Illustrated and helped design the Space Mates poster.
- Illustrated pages for and helped design the Space Mates concept art book.
Ship illustration (ship illustration by me, space by Molly Buglass-Clapham).
Ship render (rendered, comped and painted over by me)
Thousand B.R.Os render (textured and comped by me)
Bounty Hunter render (comped and painted over by me)
Interior book spread (rendered and comped by me)
Console area book spread (rendered, comped and designed by me)
Recreation area book spread (rendered, comped and designed by me)
Workshop area book spread (rendered, comped and designed by me)