The Sparring Griffins - Process

I had so much material for this from the 9 months I worked on it, I couldn't not make something with it. Additional info: It was drawn frame by frame, in Photoshop. I sculpted and rigged a 3D model for the griffin lady, that's what I used to make an animation mockup with. It's somewhat rotoscoped from that. I used a HDRI as a base for the background, but added the details in 2D. As you can see, the start sequence was longer at some point, but I ditched half of it. The end sequence on the other hand was shorter than the final version. The falling scene was from a different angle initially, but I didn't like it. I wanted no cuts in this animation, but I had to add one before that scene when I changed it. I got some invaluable feedback from Sarspax on many things, including the way the close-up slowmo is wrapped up, so that scene was tweaked too. Photoshop could not export the final as a video (CTD), so I had to put it together again in DaVinci Resolve. But at least this means an 1440p version can now exist. ♦ Character & creature design: https://www.tumblr.com/whiteraven90/764282307135799296/temporary-reference-sheet-for-griffin-i-started ♦ Even more process info: https://www.tumblr.com/whiteraven90/762391083720343552/can-i-ask-how-you-did-the-background-in-the ♦ Context: The characters are an immortal shapeshifter couple, Griffin (dude) and Phoenix (the griffin lady). They are part of a world I'm developing, called Tetra. She dislikes combat, but he loves it. Challenging fights especially. She wanted to do something nice for him, so here we are - a friendly duel to the "death" ♦ I am working on a comic in which another creature, Pegasus, is the antagonist. These two are supporting characters in it. ♦ No AI. I don't like AI. ♦ Portfolio - https://vassmelinda.com/ ♦ Art Prints - https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/vassmelinda/ ♦ Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/whiteraven90.bsky.social ♦ Ko-fi - https://ko-fi.com/whiteraven