Client
Sky

Role
3D Asset Creation,  ZBrush Sculpting

Date
2011-Present

In 2016, SouthernGFX had the pleasure of working for London based Passion Pictures on Sainsbury’s Christmas commercial. We worked along side world renowned Puppet makers Mackinnon and Saunders to provide face replacement technical modelling using ZBrush and Maya.

Directed by Academy Award and BAFTA nominee Sam Fell for Passion Pictures Animation this groundbreaking film combines brand new techniques and traditional stop motion to create a stunning and uplifting animation.

Our involvement in the project began with the creation of the first character, Dave. We were provided with scans of a Plasticine maquette, made by Mackinnon and Saunders which was then taken into ZBrush and re-built with animation safe topology.

These Sculpts were then split into two parts. The front of the face was split off, with seams following the hairline and  sweeping in underneath the jaw. Because of this, they were easier to hide which reduces the amount of clean-up in post production.

Internally, we designed a system to contain internal face mechanics. This includes insets to contain “rare earth” magnets, allowing for faces to be easily removed and swapped out in order to animate facial expressions along with support structures to contain the eye and neck mechanics.

The finished characters were shipped down to Passion Pictures in London where the final stop motion animation was produced.