Background parallax and digital snow

Here is the first panel from the first page:

I separated the background into layers in Photoshop.

Stars

 Moon

Trees

For the snow, I used nParticles in Autodesk Maya. They were rendered with default settings in mental ray and then composited in After Effects.

Snow

Adding them all up and we get this background parallax:

A blue overlay increases the coldness of the scene.

 Once I had control of each layer, I could animate the parallax and create the illusion of depth.

Shot 1

Conceptual Transfer, from comic to cartoon

Before we can begin the animation process, we must redesign the comic for the cartoon medium. We do this to streamline our production pipeline and to simplify an already complex project.

Below we have a panel from the original comic by Jesse Carson.

And here we have the redesigned concept for the animation.

Notice how the first thing to go is the beautiful use of chiaroscuro (the transitions between highlight and shadow). This is a necessary evil. Though we lose value in draftsmanship, we double our speed to produce finished frames. Rendering every frame with the same level of detail Jesse applied to his comic would take MUCH longer to produce.

Curse of the Crimson Cloak original comic

Below are the pages from the original comic created by Jesse Carson. The comic was first published in the Academy of Art University's quarterly anthology, Figments #6.