The Job part 1 - ILM / ArtStation Challenge

The third round for the ILM Art Department challenge was a bit of a shock to the system, as suddenly the tempto went up and the amount of work that needed doing in essentially the same amount of time as before went up significantly as well. Since we were planning on moving out of our apartment by the end of the same month, I did actually consider dropping out. However, although I am not satisfied with everything I did for this round I'm glad I persisted simply for the experience.

There were going to be a total of six seperate briefs for the the third round, the first one was:

The Battle of Hoth is over… or is it? The captured Rebel forces break free and launch a counter-attack. Create a keyframe from this sequence. One image minimum. Sketches and storyboards are also welcomed if you choose to do so. But remember, tell the story.

Director’s Notes: “There is a prison break scene in Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress – let’s use that as a template for scale and energy. There needs to be a diversion that happens and allows the Rebel fleet to gain some distance. Maybe some wild animals running around too!”


I did a few thumbnails based on the prison break scene, and though I really liked the shots of the rebels emerging from the cave entrances I felt it was much more in Kurosawa's style to put the camera a little closer to the action and have them run towards it so I went with the last option. I also felt it helped to have the destroyed shield generator in the background to mark the scene as a counter attack rather than the initial battle, and by zooming in I could put in some detail to show most rebels having been through the wringer once already.


I elaborated a little on my initial thumbnail with some notes to remember when working on the keyframe, and went from there. It took me a little to get up to speed with this one so I didn't manage to flesh everything out in great detail, but I'm quite okay with the shot in the end despite that. Had this been an actual production job I probably wouldn't have stuck to my initial painterly style though. I tried to keep some consistency between my entries but there are much more efficient ways to do crowd scenes like this.