Scene 2 “The Oneiric“
“The Pirate of the Oneiric” is my exploration of the collision between childhood dreams and reality. Through Leila’s journey, I depict my struggle between authenticity and societal conformity, transitioning from the sanctuary of childhood imagination to the uncertainties of adulthood. My art direction for Leila as a pirate signifies my idea of what youthful rebellion and free spirit look like. I wanted both sisters to contrast; Anipe, the older sister, is more refined in a dress with African fabric and face paint to celebrate her culture. She has a neater hairstyle than Leila, further emphasizing the difference between the two. Leila embodies my fear and uncertainty in facing life’s transitions, while Anipe symbolizes my journey towards conformity and personal growth into adulthood.
For my thesis project, “The Pirate of the Oneiric,” I utilized Marvelous Designer to craft their clothing and performed UV layout in Maya. Additionally, I modeled the initial braids for the main character, Leila, in Maya. Hair grooming for both characters, Anipe and Leila, was accomplished using XGen Interactive. The character styles include a braided twist in a ponytail and a messy French braided style with curly hair left out in the back. Texture painting for clothing and character skin was executed using Substance Painter, and the characters were rendered in Maya using Arnold shaders. While I did not model the characters myself, I sourced Anipe from AAU and Leila from CGTrader/TurboSquid. Heather Freeze modeled the hair jewelry for Leila.
Regarding the set and environment, I initially modeled the scene as a replica of “Lilo and Stitch” from the first movie using Maya, and UV layout was performed for the entire set. Heather Freeze later remodeled, adjusted, and added assets to both scenes to better fit my story. Assets retained from the initial scene include the bookshelf, top shelf, easel, paint supplies, flower lei, green Scrump doll, Ukulele, octopus, books, crayons, paper, bed sheets, cloth on the chair and bed, chair, platform, wood, record player, window frame, tank, jar, back rug, picture frame, and amp. Fur and feather assets and one rug were created using XGen Interactive, while ZBrush was used to sculpt the green Scrump doll and octopus. Cloth dynamics were applied using nCloth for both doll and cloth assets. Some assets were sourced from CGTrader and TurboSquid, including the flounder doll, rabbit, whale, sword, pirate hat, and shell treehouse. In the second scene, Heather Freeze modeled both pirate ships and the lamp. Water was created using BOSS in Maya and exported as a displacement map.
Illustrations were completed by me, with Joshua Jay Christie contributing the main illustration in the storybook and a real-life portrait of the two sisters. (Joshua Jay Christie images Below)
Lighting was achieved using Maya, with two lighting setups: one sunny day look and one cloudy look using Arnold lights. Render layers were created, and renders were composited using Nuke before being exported through Media Encoder to MP4 format.
Music by camdenmusique “Lost”