I was tasked to do the art direction for the announcement of the final launch character, Forsburn! Our main goal was to visualize the character's backstory through the use of shadow puppets and limited animation -- a more experimental direction than past reveal trailers.
For the trailer, I did the initial concepts for the Shadow Puppets, and the final Puppet Assets. I also created the template and bone rig for each puppet for our animator and video editor on the project. Most characters followed a similar rig set up and had color templates shown for clarity -- usually with head, arms, legs, and body seperated, as well as eyes and mouth toggles, each organized by layers. I also created all of the background enviroments as well, seperating each asset by fore, middle, and background to allow flexibility in the final project.
Along with the shadow puppets and environments, I also did the storyboards and timing of the entire pre-production side. The final animation and post-production was done by @sadkellz on Twitter.
Rivals of Aether 2 releases on October 23rd!
Final Character Trailer