Celestial Flower

Celestial Flower, a one-minute 2D animated short film made mainly with TVpaint, is a tragedy set in a small town in ancient China. The story is about a young girl who sacrifices herself in order to find a mysterious flower needed to save her grandmother. The characters’ lives are shown by flames in their bodies, the characters will weaken or die as the flames gets smaller.
In the climax of the story, the young girl transforms into a butterfly when she falls from the cliff because she tries to reach the crystal flower to save her grandmother. In the end, the butterfly flies back to reunite with her grandmother and delivers the crystal flower to extend her grandmother’s flame.
In style, I used mostly light dreamy colors such as baby blue and pink to be my theme color for this project because I wanted to present an atmosphere of warmth and kindness. I drew my characters round with no harsh angles in order to match the style that I try to achieve. Therefore, the characters and backgrounds combine into a children’s book illustrated style. In the process of creating this work, I started from creating thumbnails and storyboards in my sketchbooks then I expanded my ideas into the computer program, TVpaint, to animate them frame by frame. I used a soft pencil brush in brown to test rough animation, clean up, then paint the color/texture layer to add color to my characters. For example, in the second scene when the protagonist runs through the forest, I started from shooting reference videos to understand the human actions then I separated the motion frame by frame to draw in TVPaint. Finally, I added special effects and sound effects to enhance the overall mood of the piece. The only part involved 3D is when the protagonist is looking at the map. The map is made from three-dimensional in Maya, which the special clothing effects will make the look soft and smooth. I researched and shot reference videos to understand the character’s motions walking in snow, then finally did the research on special effects in After Effects.
I work in 2D animation because it allows a lot of aesthetic freedom with numerous styles that cannot be done in 3D. I want to communicate the idea about the cycle of life, what goes around comes around. I believe people can learn about this concept of life from my animation and build up relationships like the young girl and her grandmother - learn to love other people unconditionally. I make connections between the girl and the butterfly. To me, the girl turning into a butterfly represents the concept of rebirth. This transformation references a traditional Chinese myth. I hope my audience will receive the knowledge of making wise choices and cherish the moment after watching my animation.