BEYOND HUMAN : Meeting Jane

Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing great. Today, I would like to share with you my entry for the Beyond Human Artstation Challenge and the journey of its conception. The name of this project is called Beyond Human - Meeting Jane. It is a very simple story based on a beautiful relationship between a little girl and a member of an evolved human species, thousands of year apart. The story also revolves around identity, brotherhood and obsession. An obsession for perfection, that would kill hundreds.

This article explains my process of creation with the story embedded. So, if you are looking for a quick run of just the story, you can follow the entry logs made by the protagonist himself, posted with every keyframe.

Alright, let's get started!

Ideation Process

So basically, I started out by searching for something unique yet deeply familiar to daily life experience and emotion. I wanted to emphasize on a relationship in detail while inclining heavily on the theme and establish a strong bond with the audience through the characters in the story.

I had this very rude looking grey character in my mind, walking carelessly through the ruins of a barren apocalyptic world. Now, I needed another character to introduce a beautiful relationship with this character, a little girl from a different time thousands of year ago. With the story set, I started sketching the characters in appealing moments meanwhile setting the design. Then, I started defining certain significant aspects of the project such as logo, design patterns, key colors, objects and artstyle which would become my main tools in telling the story effectively.

Keyframe Sketches and Blockouts

Referring to the sketches in my note, I created four line drawings of appealing keyframes strong enough to tell the whole story.

Keyframe 1 - Meeting Jane

Keyframe 2 - Losing the Friend

Keyframe 3 - The Enemy Must Pay

Keyframe 4 - God at the End

K1 and K4, introduction and conclusion respectively, are interrelated, expressing the bigger plot of the story. I also used them to define the overall world. K2 and K4 on the other hand, were designed to narrate the core plot.

I used limited references for the mood and colors as I already had a setting in mind. I polished the concepts further in the value and color blockout stage, maintaining a close eye in retaining the focus on story-telling objects. I wanted to make the scenes really dramatic and dynamic, a reason for which I have made certain characters and objects engaged in a motion or task.

Keyframe 1 : Meeting Jane

Through the massive ruins of a decaying world, which tell the most terrifying tale in history of mankind, our hero Grey-37 sets out to inspect an unknown object, his navigator picked up.

Keyframe 1 : Process

Using my thumbnail as base, I applied different material textures such as concrete, metal and clothes in overlay blending mode. Then, I polished the concept upto a certain satisfactory level with more detailing around the focus area. Finally, my favorite part, adding atmosphere and effects to induce priority, distance and dynamics among the objects.

Keyframe 2 : Losing the Friend

A beautiful budding friendship takes a tragic turn when Elder Grey - 02, a man of pure evil abducts little Jane, leaving her friend at the threshold of death.

After few hours........

Keyframe 2 : Process

So, here's the brief process of making my second keyframe. As you could see, I am sticking to my basic technique used in keyframe 1. Sketch > Color Key > Adding texture > Refining > Effects!

Keyframe 3 : The Enemy Must Pay

Justice comes for all, and it has not forgotten the elder grey. Grey-37 comes to rescue little Jane and end Elder Grey-02's obsession of becoming a pure Homo Sapien.

Keyframe 3 : Process

Keyframe 4 : God at the End

Not long after the death of Elder Grey-02, our hero realizes it is just the beginning. Jane has become a beacon to the dreadful beings of this new dying world. But She is safe. Safe in his arms.

Keyframe 4 : Process

So, finally we have come to the end of the article!

Guys, thanks a lot for being with me this far. I really appreciate you sparing your valuable time to go through my story. I hope you enjoyed it. I feel really accomplished to be able to present you this content. Hopefully, I will be creating more such projects and entertain you all. For the moment, I will see you again!

______________Thank you______________