If you’ve read my previous posts, you will have seen all of the test and moodboards I’ve carried out trying to find my background style for the day dream sequences in this project.
And… none of them feel quite right!
I want something with a dream like quality to it, but if the background style is too wishy-washy, it doesn’t make for smooth transitions to and from the real life style. So, it needs to be something that still has coloured line art, since that’s such a big part of the way I’ve been drawing the real world – alongside having very flat colours.
So, it was time to try something new!
The main day dreams that need a specific ‘day dream’ background created for them, are the romance segment, and more obviously, the anime section.
So, my main source of inspiration when coming up with a new direction was to look into backgrounds for anime meant to convey psychic power or magic – to reference back to the fact this film is about a telepath, and try and make that more obvious (a few people have critiqued that it’s a little hard to know exactly what is happening in the short film, since there is no dialogue – I hope having more indications of telepathy and a change in title will help make this more clear).
The bulk of the references above are from either Mob Psycho 100 or Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
In Mob Psycho, they use kaleidoscope patterns as an indication of psychic powers, and this is something I want to have directly influence my work. So along with the collaged backgrounds in Madoka Magica that they used to depict witches, I want to incorporate explosions of kaleidoscopes to help transition into the anime sequence, and then have it swirling in the corners of the screen as part of the background.
So, while painting in the background traditionally that I will use for the anime segment, I ended up recording some videos through the lens of a kaleidoscope to use here, which I can then tweak the hue and saturation of until I have the level of contrast I want when paired with my painted background.
Within this video, you can also get an idea of the background I’m going to use! Inspired by a study of a gothic painting I’ve worked on in my sketchbook, I’ve painted lots of little dabs of colour mixed with gold metallic paint to try and create something with the dreamy quality I’m after. These dabs have been painted in concentric rings, so that once I’ve scanned the painting, I can then animate it at the composting stage to slowly spin round, creating the appearance of moving blobs of colours.
I’m very excited for how this collaged background will look!