'Ephemera' - Animation Breakdown

A little late to post this artwork, but here's of my most ambitious projects- possibly the one that came out to be the best looking.

I had this idea of a 'feel-good' scenario around a year ago, which inspired me to write a piece of music to confine what I was feeling at the time. After around 4 months since then, I made a sketch of what this animation could look like. Then after actually starting to work on the scene in 3D to compositing the render, it took me about a month of work. I finished this in November 2021, and then later posted the breakdown video (attached to this post) in January 2022, where I go over the exact process of making this.

Full Breakdown Video

A quick and dirty storyboard to put my ideas down for the different shots I wanted to have in the animation.

One of the first firefly animation tests

Slowly progressing with the character animation, adding subtleties in facial expressions and movement of the arms etc.

Early hand animation tests

An Eevee viewport render for better preview of the facial expressions on the second shot and also to get a vague idea of the mood of the scene so far

[1/7 test still-render]
Did one still render for each major shot in the animation and did some color grading in Photoshop to get an idea of what the final result might look like.

[2/7 test still-render]

[3/7 test still-render]

[4/7 test still-render]

[5/7 test still-render]
This frame in particular helped me to realize how bright the background fireflies were in this shot. I later decreased the intensity to some extent.

[6/7 test still-render]

[7/7 test still-render]

The final animation (after post-production)