Blue Dog is an animated, full of energy short film and is also our first and very own beer.
We teamed up with our good friends and just killer brewers at Gross to create this crazy, adrenaline-fueled film along with a signature Niceshit craft beer.
Inspired by their independent, punky-rebel essence we wrote from scratch this rollercoaster ride of a story, a non stop persecution of this police dog in the endless chase for at least one last drop of this juicy, refreshing hazy IPA.
Produced by Niceshit and co-directed with the great friend of the house Leo Campasso we put together a concise yet stellar team that made this possible, from the blank page, hundreds of ideas to the last tiny details.
Final Frames
A brief selection of some of our favourite moments from the film.
Each and every frame was treated with the love and detail of editorial illustration, mixing hard sharpie-like strokes with a bunch of different textured brushes and noise textures.
We invite you to navigate this film one frame at a time, there are a lot of beautiful surprises in there :)
Characters Development
Character studies & character sheets are key to any animated production and specially for a frame by frame developed short film. Below are some sketches, key poses and turnarounds of the Blue Dog main cast.
Animation Process
We always try to share some of the behind the scenes, how these shots were made from the rough pencil tests to the later clean up and final look.
Below are two of our favorite scenes - the skater shot has so much dynamism mixed with some simple, manga-inspired kinetics and well, what can we say about that dog and the foggy lens? It was definitely a challenge but it came out amazing! All made frame by frame in Photoshop.
Grandma has a brief - and accidental - appearance in this film but she's still one of our favorite characters :)
For this shot below is the only one we approached differently and roughly sketched the camera movement and overall action in 3D first, aiming to get the timings right to then move into the initial, rough pencil animation.
You can see the main 3 process stages in the edit below.
Akira Homage
We just couldn't resist to add our little contribution to the endless Akira bike-slides homages, from The Simpsons, Adventure Time, Batman and Ninja Turtles...now also Blue Dog :)
This little walk cycle sketch was one of the firs things we made, months ago while brainstorming the full project. Animated by the greatest Leo Campasso.
Layouts & Camera Composition
After laying down the ideas on a storyboard the second phase before working on the final style frames we sketched every layout and camera angle for all the scenes, this gives us a complete and integral understanding of the film structure and we can steadily work from here.
First ever animatic (hilarious stuff!)
This animatic is just pure gold, it makes us laugh every time we watch it and it also surprises us how similar to the actual final film it is.
Credits:
Produced by Niceshit
Client: Gross Brewing
Directed by Niceshit & Leo Campasso
Creative Directors: Carmen Angelillo, Guido Lambertini, Rodier Kidmann & Leo Campasso
Executive Producer: Agusta Timotea
Written by Leo Campasso
Art Direction: Rodier Kidmann, Carmen Angelillo & Bianca Sangalli Moretti
Animation Directors: Leo Campasso & Guido Lambertini
Design & Illustration:Rodier Kidmann & Bianca Sangalli Moretti
Cel Animation & Clean Up: Leo Campasso, Ezequiel Cruz, Bianca Sangalli Moretti & Ana Freitas
Edit & Compositing: Guido Lambertini, Ana Freitas & Carmen Angelillo
3D Animation: Guido Lambertini & Leo Campasso
3D Render: Carolina Carballo
Music & Sound Design: Facundo Capece & Lola Ritcher
