Skindeep
Short Film
Conceptual Art | Character Designs
SKINDEEP is an animated short film that brings race-based trauma to the surface. It was co-written with Dr. Robert Carter Ph.D. Psychologist and Professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia University and in partnership with EMPOWHER NY and Ingrid Silva.The animation was entirely made with traditional watercolor, and I worked on the visual concepts for the characters and some of the shots, using digital watercolor techniques.
Backgrounds
At the early stage of Skindeep, I began the art explorations, focusing on how the environment and overall setting would look.
Characters
Then I started exploring the character concepts. The directors wanted to combine the loose, expressive watercolor brushwork with equally loose contour lines to better define the forms. The character studies I created next helped set the visual tone for the rest of the project.
Style Frames
The next step was to work on a few style frames to explore how the visual solutions would translate into motion. The contour lines were eventually dropped, allowing me to focus on how to use looser graphic brushstrokes to convey a stronger sense of movement.
The creation of this final style frame ended up directly inspiring the design of the project’s cover:
