A Little Magic Lights Up the Sky

Brief

Pretend you work at a design agency and pitch a brand of your choice: the client has heard 3D is the next big thing on the web and wants an animated promotional header for their website. It didn’t have to be photorealistic, but it couldn’t be static.

The project ran in milestones: a style board, sketches and references, a blockout, and finally a desktop hero (1920 × 1080) and a mobile version, rendered with and without the website UI.

Concept project for a school assignment, not made for or with Disney.

Process

Picking a brand

I started with five brands in mind: McDonald’s, Netflix, Apple, Chanel and Disney. The moment I heard the assignment I was already picturing a composition for each, but for Disney I could see the castle straight away, and I knew that one would turn out best visually. I was a bit worried it would feel too obvious, since most people picked more specific brands.

I sketched a composition with possible animations for my top three: Disney, Netflix and McDonald’s. In the consults I was told to go for either Disney or Netflix, and that McDonald’s was too obvious. When I asked why Disney wasn’t, my teacher said most people are afraid of doing Disney because of copyright, or because they think they need the actual characters. For me that was a challenge accepted.

First Disney sketch: a theme park with a castle, Mickey ears, a carousel and hot air balloons

Netflix sketch: a cinema building with genre signs, a film camera and a big N screen

McDonald's sketch: a restaurant with the golden arches, a ball pit and a slide

Apple sketch: a giant apple with a spiral staircase inside the bite

First sketches: Disney (theme park), Netflix, McDonald's and Apple.

I dropped Netflix: it was a free choice, and I knew I didn’t have the same passion for it, so I wouldn’t do as good a job.

Finding the angle

Both concepts were approved, but I needed an angle. My first Disney sketch was basically a theme park. Looking at what everyone else was making, much more abstract and unreal compositions, I decided to change it. I brainstormed for a few hours and landed on a mix of theme park and storytelling: fairytales coming alive at night. The new sketch was approved again.

The new Disney sketch: a glass slipper on a pillar, stacked books, a quill, a carousel and the castle with Mickey ears behind it

The new sketch: fairytales coming alive at night.

Style board "Where Fairytales Come to Life" with night-time castle photos, a balloon, a cloud, miniature scenes and a purple-to-teal colour palette

Reference board with the Disney Channel logo, the castle, a hot air balloon, the glass slipper, a cloud, a carousel, books, a quill and floating lanterns

Style board and references. Click to enlarge.

I was warned that some elements would be hard to pull off, like the glass slipper, and I already knew the lighting would be tricky because everything happens at night.

Building it

I started with the blockout like everyone else, but I tried to make the castle as close to the final one as possible so I wouldn’t have to change much later. After that I built every object one by one. The glass slipper alone took me a full day to get the shape I wanted.

Grey blockout of the scene in Blender: castle, cloud, books, glass slipper, carousel and balloons

The blockout. I kept the castle close to its final shape from the start.

The glass slipper in Blender: three plain, earlier versions of the shoe lined up behind the final one, which has a sparkly glass material

The glass slipper in Blender, with earlier versions of the shape behind the final one.

Learning Blender while doing this wasn’t easy, but it came naturally to me, and what kept me going was that I genuinely enjoyed what I was making. Funny enough, the mobile version ended up being the biggest struggle.