Silver Movie, Video and Animation Design · 2023
Sea of Ink Animation
by Chenxin Yang
- A' Design Award 2023 Silver Winner in Movie, Video and Animation Design
- Awarded April 15, 2023
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 60,578
- Verification code 8BD8F29827 · Verify this award
About Sea of Ink Animation
Sea of Ink is an animated short film about an artist who struggles with a creative block and travels under the sea. The film shows how the artist breaks through barriers during the creative process. A visual aesthetic of three-dimensional hand-drawn watercolor ink gives the story a distinct look. The work combines 2D animation, 3D animation, live-action footage, hand-drawn illustrations and motion graphics. The live-action scenes were filmed with a DSLR camera. Sea of Ink runs for two minutes and twenty-seven seconds.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- This is an animated short film about an artist struggling with his creative block and his journey under the sea. This animation portrays how the artist breaks through the barriers during the creation process. The animation has an unique visual aesthetic of the 3D hand-drawn watercolor ink style.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- 1 Video
Width 1920 pixels, Height 1080 pixels
2 minutes and 27 seconds - Tags
- Motion design, Animation, Design, Motion Graphics
- Production Technology
- The techniques used in this work are 2D animation, 3D animation, videography, hand-drawn illustrations and motion graphics. The live-action part was filmed by DSLR camera.
- Design Challenge
- One of the challenge was to make the coherent visual between the live-action part and Chenxin's 3D hand-drawn watercolor ink style in the animation. Chenxin spent a lot effort and tried many versions to achieve the best result.
- Project Duration
- The project took 2 years to ideate, research, design, animate and complete in New York.
- Operation Flow
- This work is a combination of animated visuals and audio. This animated short film can be played on the screen.
- Research
- Chenxin has been creating hand-drawn textured style animations for years and developed her own creative aesthetics. Chenxin researched deeply into animation techniques including ink fluid and particle rendering to combine 2D, 3D and videography in the animation. The work expresses ink stroke in a new way of presentation with self-finding inspiration.
- Inspiration
- This animation is inspired by the artist's creative exploration path. The psychological struggle and subconscious artistic choices of the artist's creative process provided the main inspiration for this animation. The animation is visually influenced by traditional ink and watercolor paintings.
- Image Credits
- Image 1: Creator Chenxin Yang
Image 2: Creator Chenxin Yang
Image 3: Creator Chenxin Yang
Image 4: Creator Chenxin Yang