BACKGROUNDS MAIN PACK #01A - EPHEDIA’S CASTLE and THRONE ROOM (Light)

You’ve seen our characters’s and prop’s main pack, now it’s time for the backgrounds ! 

We finished with the Queen and King, so let’s continue where it all began : the castle of Ephedia, and the Throne Room.

Now, it’s Gramorr’s headquarter (and prison), but he didn’t build this place : he only took it over ! So we had to create both the Castle and the Throon Room in their best day, “before Gramorr”. You can see how these room are filled with light, in order to constrat with their dark future…

Designs by Christophe Oliver, Benoit Maillochon and Vincent Rueda. Color by Sylvain Fabre, Céline Lorthiois and Damien Hausson. 

lolirock background throne room ephedia's castle christophe oliver Benoit maillochon Vincent Rueda Sylvain Fabre Céline Lorthiois damien hausson

The Concert Stage Background

When it was decided the princesses had a band, and would often perform concerts, we wanted them to have their own and unique stage. And, while we were at it, we decided to make it magical. 

In term of story, it would be cooler and more practical : the girls could summon it at the last minute, and we would be able to do a concert everywhere ! That’s basically what happens at the end of episode 107 - Sirens, when the girls have their concert right on the wreck of the S.S.Valentino (which, by the way, is probably a little unsafe. Rust and dust and other things like that).

However, summoning it in front of people is kind of a big shot, and it’s harder to pretend “eh, it’s normal ! It’s part of the show !”. I mean, who’d believe it ? People in Sunny Bay are already way too confortable with the daily-crystal-bizarre stuff that’s happening in their town, and we felt summoning too often the stage would really be pushing it to the point our audience wouldn’t like it anymore. So we tried to be careful with it, and only use the summon on already extraordinary situations (’cause when you magically raise a cruise boat, who cares you summon a little stage ?)

As you perhaps noticed, there are two types of concert : Inside (BFF / We Are Magic / Celebrate), and Outside (Revolution / Higher), yet the stage remain the same : In term of production, creating this “one only” stage, and sticking with it, was what allowed us to create the clips and easily insert them into the episodes. We could change (to a limit) what was around the stage (like in the example above with the boat), but not much more. Without the stage itself, we probably would have needed to change the whole background on each episode, meaning “no reuse”, which would have been really expensive. We had to be a little smarter and avoid it. :)

Concept art by Christophe Oliver, Line clean by  Christophe Oliver, Benoît Maillochon and Vincent Rueda, Color by Sylvain Fabre, Damien Hausson and Céline Lorthiois. 

Lecteurs francophones ? Voici la version française du texte ci-dessous.

Keep reading

lolirock the stage developpement background Christophe oliver benoit maillochon sylvain fabre vincent rueda damien hausson céline lorthiois

Colorboard for “BFF” (LoliRock - Clip #02)

Here is the colorboard we created for “BFF”. Like for Revolution, its purpose was to help us visualize the look & feel we wanted our clips to have, and test different things compared to Revolution. Then, with it we could give a precise direction to compositing and color team.

Colorboard created by Sylvain Fabre, Damien Hausson and Céline Lorthiois, from Jun Violet’s original storyboard.

Lecteurs francophones ? Voici la version française du texte ci-dessous.

Keep reading

lolirock bff clip 2 colorboard jun violet céline lorthiois damien hausson sylvain fabre

Transformations Sequences - Key & Full Colorboards

As for “Revolution”, the transformations were made early in the production process, before the episodes. Therefore, to find how we wanted them to look like, we needed to make additional researches and references.

That’s why we created the Key Color Boards above. Then, even though it could have been enough to work, we decided to push a little further and completed the full color storyboard for each princess.

On the long term, preparing these was incredibly helpful and time-saving, as all the researches for hook-up, fx, and backgrounds were done. 

Doing these also allowed some test. For example, initially, we intended to put filter on them so each princess would be immersed in the same ambiance color as the her transformation background. We tested it on Talia, and then realized it gave the feeling she was “sort-of” already transformed, with the dark blue-purple hair reflection. For Iris and Auriana, we tested keeping the regular character colors, and it worked way better, so we decided this would be the final choice.

And about Amaru ? Well, as I explained in the previous post, his transformation was created on the regular production pipeline, alongside the episodes. By this time, we no longer needed colorboards as we knew how our most magical moments should look like. :)

These colorboards were created by both our background color team (Sylvain Fabre, Damien Hausson, Céline Lorthiois) and one of our FX men (Jullian Goff), from Christelle Abgrall’s storyboards.

Lecteurs francophones ? Voici la version française du texte ci-dessous.

Keep reading

lolirock colorboards iris talia auriana sylvain fabre damien hausson céline lorthiois jullian goff christelle abgrall