Friday, June 13, 2008

Surf's Up - Designing Big Z Beach

All Images ©Sony Pictures Animation.
Designing Surf's Up's "North" beach where Big Z lives was one of earliest tasks I had to undertake in the film and evolved through different designs. Here are some of them. Above is the approved sequence illustration for the "feel" on how Cody sees the place for the very first time. Cody character on the foreground was done by Sylvain DeBoissy.

Here's one of my favorite shots in the film. I designed the extreme down shot from Cody's POV on the cliff before he went down to the beach.

Now this one is the earliest aerial shot I did in order to map out the beach based from different story beats. The tall waterfalls on the left was supposed to be a sacred pond where Cody has to do his "karate kid" moment with Big Z and climbs to the top. Also if you notice right on the middle is a bluff where big Z does his beach chanting and be "one" with the waves. On top of a hill are two openings on the ground with smoke coming out which are the lava tube entrances. Towards the right is the main beach where Big Z's house (the huge banyan tree) and boardshack (bent palm) are located. Lastly, at the very tip of the island on the right is a surfboard shaped rock where Big Z is supposed to reveal himself to Cody.



Above are very early design explorations for his beach. Notice Big Z's pad and boardshack on the first two images. The third one are thumbnails to find the right shapes.





These last five images are the final approved design for the beach. Notice the sacred pond is still there. It was taken out later in production. Last two are elevations showing how rocks at the north shore used to form one huge monolith and eroded through the years. Enjoy.

29 comments:

Raghu G said...

nice;

thanks for this post !!

JP said...

inspiring stuff- It's great to see your thinking in these sketches.

Jörn said...

Amazing Sketches. Really interesting to see the development and phases in a professional work

Martin Bergquist said...

Great post!

Mark McDonnell said...

Incerdible man. Nice to see the stages of development to the final breakdowns for production. Beautiful as always my friend. I you and your family are well.

Best,

MAC

gcastro3d said...

Really amazing work dude. I'll be stopping by from now on.

God Bless,
George

Jose Ramos said...

Hey Armand , Great works here.
.I love your backgrounds. I live in a island in the middle of atlantic ocean (Canary Island) , .and this sketches remember me my home.
Congratulations Armand
see u!

Kisel.B said...

Excellent work Armand!

Marco Bucci said...

wow, thanks for posting this stuff. Just great! And it's nice to see how faithful the film was to these designs.

BMan said...

Awesome work! Thanks for sharing all of that!

I got to meet David Schaub at Industry Giants last weekend. He had a lot of good insight on animating expressive eyes.

Thanks again!

SEILER said...

Wow, these are just amazing Armand! So inspiring, thanks for sharing!!!

Mark Behm said...

Great post! So many cool images.

Jay Fabares said...

these are awesome! I love the top pic! don't recall any of these in the art of book ;) better take a look again!

Armand Serrano said...

Hey Jay,

I believe the one in the art of book is the beautiful painted version done by Noelle Triaureau.

Alessandra Sorrentino said...

Armand you did a fantastic job on this movie.
And I really enjoy your pencil posts :)
Hope all is well in LA! Take care,
Alessandra

Carolina said...

Oh, dios mioooooo....those are AWESOME!!!!

Constructive comment, as you can see, XDDD but, sorry, it´s what I feel when I see your work.

Wonderful locations, excellent tonal range....amazing artwork, Armand.

Thanks for share this.
(and for your comment, thanks a lot)

Un saludo!

Unknown said...

These are brilliant!

C.B. Canga said...

amazing!

Dave Dick said...

These are great! Thanks for sharing!

Andrew Glazebrook said...

Really amazing work as usual !!!

Tim Bye said...

Wonderful drawings - really inspiring stuff!

lanfeng3d said...

Awesome work!I very like the Beach!

sam michlap said...

fantastic work Armand! I love the scale and mood of your work. I have been away for too long but I am finally posting again.

Take care man,

Sam

Sergi Cardó said...

I love your pencils, amazing and inspirating work.

Sergi Cardó

~ said...

very cool work

A. Riabovitchev said...

Fantastic work Armand!

Anonymous said...

[...]resource[...]

Parka said...

Absolutely awesome. I bought the book.

Cheers,
Parka

anima-base said...

Superb~~
Great Armand~