Earlier this year the amazing team at Cardiff Capitol Region asked us to bring alive an idea they had for a short animated explainer video. Cardiff animation company Turnip Starfish were over the moon to explore and illustrate the Welsh valleys. Cardiff Capitol Region had a script and rough idea of what they wanted, but needed us to bring their ideas to life in a visual form.
The team at Cardiff Capitol Region really liked the way animation company Turnip Starfish tell stories though character animation and create ‘worlds’. The first job for the Cardiff animation studio was to create some concept art, illustrations and storyboards to bring the idea to life.
The animation team explored different illustration ideas and characters. Working closely with the team at Cardiff Capitol Region to create an identity and brand that the client was really excited to show to the general public.
With a final story board complete the animation team at Turnip Starfish created an animatic. This is a rough storyboard filmed, to help get an idea of the finished production.
With the animatic approved the team finalised the visual look.
Now that the artwork was approved by the client the animation team started the process of animating the scenes by hand. Each scene was hand drawn in the computer using Adobe Photoshop, using a technique called digital 2D animation. Then every drawing was coloured by hand in the computer. The backgrounds were painted and added to the scenes.
The final camera shots were created in Adobe After Effects. Then every scene was edited in Adobe Premier where the final audio was added. The final process was to create a Welsh language version as well as an English language version.