The Zenith Project is essentially one where we get to create the project of our dreams– the magnum opus, the “zenith”, if you will. It’s a project where we decide what we want to do, the only real requirement being that we must be passionate about it. During the Zenith project, we exercise many 21st Century skills, like collaboration and self-direction.

My Zenith Project is a short animation about finding beauty in the mundane. The purpose of this project was to work on my technical art skills by focusing on detailed background design, clean character animation, shot composition, and color. Additionally, I wanted to practice surrealism simply because I want to and because using animation as a means for my story would make sense. Animation is also vital to this because I feel as if the medium would be able to capture beauty in the mundane better than live action. To put things in perspective, one would be more likely to be in awe of a beautiful painting of a waterfall as opposed to seeing that same one in person (at least, in my opinion). There’s something in fine art that cannot be replicated by live action.

By explaining my purpose in creating this project, I feel as if I’ve demonstrated my passion for this. If you want to go a few degrees further, then the reason why I have the purpose I have is not only because I want to redeem myself from the GARBAGE looking animations of the past, but simply because I feel I will have a fun time with this. I find joy in watercolor and creating visual art, so I think this will be a good way to close up the year.

In terms of what I want it to look like, I want to have watercolor backgrounds with 2D animation on top. I want it to have a tone of nostalgia, which is why I would like to find a piano composer for my film (if not, then really good royalty free music, but it’s hard to find some that will fit the exact tone of my film).


The Process

The image galleries below provide a timeline of my process.

Concept Design

Digital Process

I decided to digitize my backgrounds so that I could determine my color scheme. I didn’t want to commit to watercolor before having a strong visual reference.

Watercolor


The Project

Welp… there it is. It isn’t my fully realized idea, but I am proud of what I accomplished and am content with the final product. I will definitely continue working on this in the future.

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