Mwuana - Combo
Mwuana
I produced this animation as an eye catching 30-second animated loop for the track "Combo" by Swedish artist, Mwuana ft Reegolito. The initial idea was very simple and with lots of room for creativity - take viewers on a visually stunning journey down a Route 66-inspired road and through a vibrant night life city reminiscent of Las Vegas, all in a hand-drawn art style. This flat hand-drawn aesthetic with a dynamic 3D camera move and a fish-eye distortion effect required a mix of many different techniques but the end result turned out great. This combo not only brought a taste of 90s hip-hop music videos but also mirrored Mwuana's vision and matched the color scheme with the track's album art. The result is a captivating animation that harmonizes with Mwuana's music.
Early on in the process it is always useful to create a reference sheet. This was used to explore concepts and techniques and work out the style of the animation.
The complete car and character rig. For the characters I used prerigged base models and sculpted Mwuana and Rigos features on top. We later chose to go for a much simpler "faceless" look.
The way the camera move was achieved was by curving the entire scene away from the camera while using a very wide angle lens in C4D. The fish eye distortion was possible with the use of Arnold Renderer.
Most of the illustrative effect and style was achieved in post through lots of compositing tricks.