Kutoppen: På sporet
Art Director & 2D artist - Character & Set design
I was brought onto this project from the beginning while working at Qvisten Animation, helping build upon the look of the first film and turn it into a wintery wonderland. I was mostly working as the only designer. All work below is done by me unless otherwise stated.
The film was directed by Will Ashurst
Characters
I picked up on the work on the characters immediately after joining the project. Tom Bernardes did the first pass on Albert the pig. The work also involved reworking all the characters from the previous film as they had to be remade due to techincal issues. This gave us the opportunity to reconsider proportions, how to treat different limbs etc.
The train
Most of the film takes place on Albert’s high-tech, luxury train. It was important that we built a vehicle that had enough intricate detail to work in a lot of different contexts, as well as supporting the action needed in the film. Erik Storstein had done a pass on the train first, but as soon as I joined the project i jumped into Blender and started building a 3D sketch so that we could iterate on design while making sure that the form still holds up in perspective, as time was very limited. We settled early on this design, and the mockup itself was used as a starting point/reference for the asset built in the film
Interior train
As with the exterior, the train interior also needed to fit together and have some logic behind it. I used the same approach, building a base that could be used for all wagons before starting to populate and work it within 3D. This ensured that the characters would work well with all the features in the train without having to go too much back and forth.
Animated 3D mockups for design
When I had already worked so tightly with 3D sketches it was quick to take the next step and mock up suggested mechanics and movements for the various contraptions around the train. This ensured that we add that extra layer of personality through the movements within the train while still keeping to the very high pace of the production
The pigbots
Midway through produciton we decided that Albert - and the train - needed a sort of helper character. We came up with the pigbot and I jumped a bit back and forth between 2D and 3D to ensure that we could come up with a fun robot design that felt slightly streamlined and design without having to do too many rounds back and forth with rig/animation to land on something that could actually support all the actions we needed it to do.
More pigs
Albert being the opulent pig that he is, we of course needed more pig motifs in the background. These are a few additional pig artworks done for the film. Amund Slettan supplied more, seen on paintings throughout
