Jo

Jo asked me create a background for her starscape in which her character at one point in the film he finds himself in. I approached this in the same way as nik and Ash's underwater scene, in that i used photoshop and bespoke brushes

Jo specified she didnt jsut want the generic white stars on black background but that nebulae would be quite interesting. There also needed to be one main bright star which her character would be attracted to.

Here are the intial tests i did:








She liked these but then asked whether i could do some animating for her. She specified that the main star in the background would have to explode and that it would form a black hole and then that would suck everything into it

This is more than i anticipated and had to rethink how i was going to do the paintings. Each layer with all the elements would have to be painted on individually. A totally different method of painting which i hadnt really done before. It was a different mind set. Anyway, this is the background i came up with and Jo really liked it

Here is the same layer with the exploding star on. I took inspiration from actual suns and pictures of supernovas which i had seen in space books.

Here is the resulting black hole which jo wanted. At first it was just a black hole with no red halo, but i thought that by adding that it would seem more ominous. Jo liked it.

She gave me a list of shots which needed animating. For the most part it was just a star twinkling through the spyhole, besides the last shot where the star explodes. I did these on aftereffects:

This was just the star twinkling through the spy hole, 

To make the star twinkle, i created about 12 different stars in photoshop and then imported them in to Aftereffects so that they could be staggered and repeated in the timeline. 

The first attempt looked way to fast and jo asked if they could be slowed down. I agreed, they were too jumpy didnt look appealing. I then did some more subtler stars, but more of them this time, about 20. I then imported those into after effects and staggered them as before, but more randomly and with about 2 or 3 frames of over lap on each on. Also, some ran for a lot longer too. The results were better and were used where ever the star needed to be twinkled.

Here are three more shots where this was needed.

This is the star going supernova and then back down into a black hole:

To do this i created many many layered stills in photoshop regarding subtle changes in the supernova star and then the explosion and then the blackhole. I was basically animating blind in photoshop and so there were quite a few retakes i had to do. I felt this was necessary though because i didnt just want an aftereffects-y look to it. 

The character picking up the star, mid shot as specified by jo.

Here the star was to star becoming the red giant star. I couldnt just use the star twinkling frames from the other shots because they would have become too pixelly when i expanded them for the initial star twinkling in his hand. I therefore had to produce another 20 to 30 stars but at least i knew the technique which i would use to make it twinkle would work. 

I then animated in photoshop again this star explosion. IT took two or three attempts to get right. Jo liked the final one. She also asked if, in this composite, i could stick in a bit of the painted starscape.

The initial growing of the star just after it was in his hand.

This was the start of the blackhole twirling but with a red haze over the entire scene. Jo liked it but we conversed and decided against it in the end. Below are both versions

Here is an intitial black hole test but the sides of the composition were being cropped as it spun round. It also felt very after-effectsy so i tried to reduce this. Jo seemed on the whole happy with it. She just specified to get rid of the edgeiness.

This is the final blackhole test without the clipping of the sides of the page

All the scenes as depicted above that i did for Jo i created edited and composited in photoshop and aftereffects, with the painted frames that Jo gave me.