'Rebuilt' is an animated short that aims to explore the relationship between 2D and 3D assets in a singular body of work. It was created as a means to answer my research question, “How can I implement both 2D and 3D assets together in an animated short to create a unified hybrid media character?” In this context, creating a ‘unified’ hybrid character means to make the character look whole, despite the different mediums implemented within the character’s design
Factors such as art style, design, aesthetics, render settings, and texturing can greatly affect how ‘complete’ a character looks. Therefore, it is vital that I find a good balance between all of these factors when designing my character and creating my animated short.
In 'Rebuilt', I will be focusing on creating a 2D character lead with 3D a set of limbs. My initial idea for this design is to have the character’s mechanical parts done fully in 3D, emphasising the manufactured nature of their prosthesis, whilst their human parts are done organically through hand-drawn 2D animation. To execute this, I imported my pencil tests from Krita into Maya, animated my 3D assets over the sketches, rendered them out with Toon Outlines, and brought the sequence back into Krita, where I cleaned up the assets and finalised the 2D animation.
The addition of the Toon Outlines to the 3D robot parts give the 3D models a thickness and stylised aesthetic that enables the rendered assets to merge seamlessly with my hand-drawn animations. 'Rebuilt' is informed by animated films such as Treasure Planet (2002) and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), as well as utilising the book Hybrid Animation: Integrating 2D and 3D Assets (2010), to guide my production process.
