Human Head

I designed the environment in Maya using Kitbash3D assets. From the very beginning, I knew I needed certain elements on camera that would later justify the lighting on the character and help create the desired mood.

The character I chose for this animation is Charlie from ProRigs, but the original rig was far too sweet for this shot. To match the tone, I added blood stains in Substance Painter and changed his clothing to a desaturated red inspired by the main character from Inside. This helped integrate the character into the scene.

Before starting the animation, I shot some video references of myself acting as the child to define his main movements and facial expressions to create a stronger contrast with the sweet child from Jerry Maguire, whose voice I used for this shot.

Every movement of the character and the camera was carefully planned to maintain the mystery until the very end. In Maya, I used a layered animation workflow: I started by defining the energy and timing with a few key controllers, then gradually added more details until the character was fully animated.

Lighting was crucial to create the desired atmosphere. I used references from Pan’s Labyrinth to design groups of lights that revealed the character in silhouette when the lights were off and fully illuminated him at the end. Using AOVs in Arnold was essential to control every detail during post-production.

After rendering in Maya, I worked on the final composition in Nuke. I adjusted the color of each light group, reduced noise from the original render, animated the flickering lights to increase the tension, and added cinematic effects like chromatic aberration, motion blur, and depth of field to bring more realism to the scene.

This was my first project with my mentor, Iván Benítez from The Lighting Lab. His feedback was essential in achieving the final result.