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.
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.
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.