There were many things which now needed to be done in order to make head way with the project. We needed set designs and sets being built, character rigs. The characters also needed to be tested for movement and facial expressions.

The Environment:

To create the the environments, we didn't want to create blocky, chunky scenery so resorted to the building-block speed painting way of composing a scene. We thought by creating individudal cell like structures and intermingled them with a variety of orbs it would create plenty of variation in the scenes. 

Before we went ahead though, we had to ensure that the layering system worked as many cells would be layered on top of each other. Below are some test renders:

These worked quite niceley although the movement of the cells looked a bit too underwatery so we decided just to have static scenery. 

Below is a break down of the process behind creating the indivudal cells to compose the environments:

Orbs:

The orbs were not as concepted as the rest of the elements in our piece as they arrived later but we had a good idea of how we wanted them to look. To reiterate, the orbs were the visual representation of the mechanical, electrical side of the brain which we were trying to balance with the cellular, biological side. The orbs were were the white sparks were born from. Whilst still being mechanical they still grew from the environment as if they were organic plant like. 

Below is some further concept for them before they were designed and created:

Below is a break down  of how the orbs were created in Maya:

The character:

We did some character sheets initially so we could get some perspective on their manouvability, facial expressions ranges, limits of their movement and actually HOW they would move considering their strange body mass and construction. 

Their bodys were both composed of an outer "membrane" which encased a "cell-body" in side which served as the head. In order to keep things as simple as possible, we knew that we would have to try and get as much expression out of simple facial features as possible. These facial features initially included eyes, mouth and eyebrows, as seen in much of the concept and animatics but it was an added extra we tried to do with out. Below is a sheet of facial expressions which were done to try out this simple approach:

We thought these were working well which was good as now all the head would require were eyes and mouth - much easier and faster to animate but this test showed that it was still feasible in terms of stylistic choice.

We had an interesting path ahead of us as these creatures were completely made up and so to be believable we had to create their whole physicology and how they move accoding to this. Their head inside the membrane we always intended to be free to move of its own accord. Yet despite the "other-worldly" creature, we were still bound by the guidelines of animation, in terms of posing etc. The below sheet is one look at posing options and how the body, limbs and head would all work in union to achieve solid, strong and believable poses:

When we were sure that the characters would actually work pose-wise, giving us the best chance at potentially solid animation, the rigs were now to be made. 

Before the final shape and rigging of the character was made, we needed to be sure we could replicate the softness of the photoshop images which we liked a lot. Below are some tests for this:

The tests went well. We would be using the same settings on both characters just one would be blue and one would be red. 

Below is a break down of the rigging process for the Jay character:

When the rig was made, we did some final lighting and shading tests to make sure that everything retained the soft feel:

We now began to really play with there movement. There were parameters which were defined by the physicallity of the neuron and the constraints of the rig. We now had to find a balance with these two factors, getting the best compromise. 

Below are some thumbnails for a potential Jay's movement:

Unfortunately this still wasnt quite enough so at the expense of looking a fool, we shot some reference, all in the name of art:

Eventually the movement was worked out and a render test can be seen below. The quirkiness we found was very appealing: