Finding your own path is complicated when your father is the King.
This cinematic introduces Princess Evolution through a journey that takes Princess away from the kingdom and into the frozen mountains. Along the way, family tensions, dangerous obstacles, and an encounter with the Ice Wizard give her plenty to complain about, with the humor and personality of the Clash universe.
I had the pleasure of contributing as a Layout Artist and Character Animator at Gizmo Animation Studios, under the direction of Ema Verruno and the animation supervision of Fede Gimeno. The film was produced for Supercell and Uncommon Creative Studio, with Colony as co-producer.
My contribution included layout for several shots in Princess’s journey, character animation, and support for Goblin’s performances during her confrontation with the Ice Wizard. One of the most enjoyable parts was exploring how much personality could come through in a walk, an obstacle course, or a brief reaction in the background.
Starting from the supplied storyboards, I recorded my own references to explore movement and acting choices for the shots I worked on. These experiments informed my layout work, where I established character placement, key poses, lens choices, and camera animation, as well as my keyframe animation in Maya.
To explore Princess struggling through the snowstorm, I filmed myself at the gym working against the resistance of an exercise machine. The resistance made my feet slip and forced me to work for each step, giving me useful reference for the effort and loss of traction.
For the shot where she runs along a log dodging spikes, I arranged obstacles of different heights in my backyard. I experimented with jumping over a high obstacle, clearing a lower one, and dodging another. This gave the movement varied timing and distinct actions that I could adapt to Princess’s proportions and the shot’s staging. The references helped me understand the physical mechanics while leaving room to push the poses and timing to suit her personality.
I also had a lot of fun animating the Goblins during Princess's confrontation with the Ice Wizard. My contribution in these shots focused on the supporting characters, each with a different response: one was angry, another surprised, and another terrified. Giving them individual personalities made the group much more entertaining to animate.
The breakdown below combines my acting references, Maya playblasts, and the finished shots to show how these ideas developed through production.
