Spellbound – Short Film
Lead Visual Effects, Lead Compositing, Concept Art Lead, Surfacing Artist, 3D Modeler
Spellbound – Full Film
(Unreal Engine 5, Maya 2023, Houdini 20.5, Nuke 15.4, Adobe Substance 3D Painter, Adobe After Effects 2023, Clip Studio Paint, Procreate, 44 seconds, August 2024 – November 2024)
Spellbound is an animated short film about an amateur magician testing out some new tricks, however he quickly realizes his newly acquired manual is more advanced than he thought.
This project was completed by a team of six. For this film, I was the Lead Visual Effects Artist, Lead Compositing Artist, and Art Lead. I also helped with surfacing various assets. This film was made in 2024.
Team: Lauren Waters, Kayla Tran, Sophia Cyr, Chance Jackson, Grace Griffith
VFX and Compositing
(Unreal Engine 5, Nuke, 30 seconds, November 2024)
I was in charge of all of the magical visual effects. I created a glow effect to surround the levitating objects and a simple particle system to follow the objects as they levitated. I utilized Nuke to create the glow effect. The effect was created utilizing Cryptomattes and layering various blur, erode, and noise nodes.
The particles were created using Unreal Engine’s Niagara’s hanging particle system with a custom shape, size variation, random coloration between the values of blue and purple, and random lifetime expectancy.
I was also responsible for the compositing of this film. Nuke was the primary program used for compositing. Using this program, I did color correction for the overall film, as well as color correction for specific assets.
I added a slight vignette to keep the focus of the film on the lower portion of the screen, as well as a slight depth of field to keep the primary focus on the foreground.
Prop Surfacing – Playing Cards and Background Paintings
(Substance Painter, Procreate, September 2024 – October 2024)
For Spellbound, I was responsible for surfacing the Playing Cards and Background Paintings. All of these assets were surfaced using Adobe Substance Painter. I created the initial concept art for the playing cards and then created a design for the front and back of the cards in Procreate. The design on the front and back of the card were imported into Substance Painter as an alpha mask. The images featured on the background paintings are copyright free images sourced from Pixabay.
Initial Playing Card Concept Art
Final Playing Card Design (Front and Back)
Concept Art – Magician’s Study, Magic Tome, Character Variations
(Procreate, Varying Sizes, September 2024)
As Art Lead, I was in charge of making various different pieces of art to reference for the film. The most important piece of art was the design for the Magician’s study as this would drive the visual look of the project. I created a piece of art that would invoke the dark and vintage atmosphere the team was envisioning. The piece of concept art is 12″ X 9″ and was created in Procreate.
I was also responsible for designing the magic tome that the Magician uses in the short. The team wanted the book to feel ancient so both variations were designed to look beat up and old. After the team picked the book design they wanted I created a final cover design that our Lead Surfacing Artist used in Substance Painter for the final film.
Magic Tome Design Variations
Magic Tome Final Cover Image
I created initial concept design variations for the magician character in the film. The team wanted him to look a little down on his luck so each design I created reflected this concept. Ultimately, the team picked the bottom row middle design. Our Lead Character Artist then took this design and created final character art and modeled the character in 3D based on that.
