Studio Relic: Wulf
I served as Art Director and Director for Wulf, an independent animated short film produced by Studio Relic Animation. My role focused on developing the film’s visual identity and leading a team of illustrators to create a cohesive and emotionally captivating world. I established the overall art direction, created and managed an art bible, and oversaw background layouts to final painted background plates. I provided feedback, ensured style consistency, and maintained the creative vision throughout the pipeline.
Visual Exploration & Style Revamp
As the film evolved, I led an exploration process to refine its stylistic direction. We began with multiple stylistic explorations, testing variations in texture and rendering styles all while keeping true to the original color language and tone.Through this, I guided the team toward a more cohesive visual language. The selected direction emphasized atmospheric perspective, and balance between straight versus curve shape language to better support the film's setting and painterly style we were looking to achieve. Honing in on the look of Wulf eliminated elements that felt visually heavy or distracting.
The visual shown here represents the broader art direction process, which involved collaboration and refinements to solidify the film’s final visual style.
My involvement prior to onboarding artists focused on curating a strong visual foundation. I gathered references and resources to develop a comprehensive style guide that would give our artists a clear starting point for their initial explorations. This process involved identifying the project’s core themes and visual direction, as well as aligning with product and creative goals.
The style guide (click to view) provides an overview of the project style, including mood boards, real-life references, and examples of artwork from other relevant projects. Together, these elements ensured that visual development felt intentional
Style guide and Background guide
click to view
Background guide - Finalized Development Assets
During pre-production my role switched to assigning work and giving feedback to ultimately create a background art bible with finalized Wulf concepts; the background guide is the cumulative work of the preproduction visual development.
It includes: 40+ concept art assets, a painting guide, a color script, and various visual development illustrations
click to view
Background Supervision: From Storyboard to Render
After preproduction concluded, I was tasked with managing the 96 background plates from the storyboards all the way to final rendered background plates.
Challenges: With a team of over 30 illustrators id need to hone their painting style to insure that the style stayed consistent
Solution: I created a multipage painting guide that I attached to the background guide as well as assisted in the creation of a layout guide.
Layout Phase
After the storyboards were concluded and locked in, the producer and I worked to coordinate with the storyboard artists to ensure the camera angles and movement were accurate. I assisted in assigning background shots based on their current body of work and then provided feedback in draw-overs, written notes or in office hours.
I assisted in the creation of a layout guide, which walks artists step by step on how to get from Storyboard to final layout
Background Phase - Final Illustrated Background Plates
During the paint phase, I oversaw the flat, render and polish of all backgrounds. Each phase has specific color notes, shape language polishing, texture readjustment, lighting corrections that I provided notes on in the form of paintovers, written notes, or office hours. additionally I assisted with assignment management
Challenge: keeping the colors consistent with the color script proved to be a task that was hard to accomplish
Solution: we assigned work in batches that followed the sequence of the short allowing me to reference the color script when providing color feedback on the flats, before the artists finalized their renders.
Project Management
In addition to leading the Visual direction, I handled a significant portion of the department’s production management. I maintained tracking documents, sequence lists, and status reports while supervising the schedule to ensure milestones were achieved. I assigned artists, monitored deliverables, led reviews, documented notes, and ensured director feedback was clearly implemented. I also guided and supported the department coordinator/PA to keep operations running smoothly.
