Animation
2D Animation Demo Reel
La Promesa de la Luna
Sol is an android girl working to convert the moon into a habitable environment so humanity can escape the zombie apocalypse. At the same time, she has video calls with her earth-bound human father, Dr. Prometeo, who is struggling to create a cure.
Promotional Poster
Composition and Character Line art by: Leon E.S
Background Design and Colors by: Lia French
Trailer
Co-created, Written, Animated, and Edited by: Lia French and Leon E.S
Character Designs and Storyboards: Leon E.S
Background Design and Project Management: Lia French
Additional Animation: Cassandra Baer and Sophia Rose Cruz
Spanish Translations by: Juan Pablo Salas and Mateo Sof Alier Lachuga
Voice Acting:
Prometeo = Mauricio Salas
Soledad = Mateo Sof Allier Lechuga
Because of time constraints the fully animated version was a much shorter, trailer cut of our story. For full context of the story watch this final animatic we made before it was edited down.
Final Animatic
Storyboards: Leon E.S
Animation: Lia French
Editing and Sound Design: Lia French and Leon E.S
Spanish Translations by: Juan Pablo Salas and Mateo Sof Alier Lachuga
Voice Acting:
Prometeo = Mauricio Salas
Soledad = Mateo Sof Allier Lechuga
Off-Screen Guard = Craig Good
Early Concept Art
Character Line Art by Leon E.S
Finalized Background Designs by Lia French
The Great Space Escape
An astronaut crash lands on the moon and finds a shape shifting alien that might be able to get her back to earth.
The Great Space Escape was a short film I created entirely independently during the Covid-19 Pandemic. It comedically combines my love of sci-fi and my anxieties at the time around loneliness and isolation.
Fun Fact: The alien is a crab at the beginning because it is a joke about Carcinization, the fact that evolution has independently and repeatedly created crab-like body plans, especially for crustaceans that are not actually crabs. So my idea is that a shape-shifting alien that never met a human would most likely evolve into a crab-like shape before it ever figured out how to make a human-like body.
Rough Storyboards - click arrow to scroll or click images to see full size version
The first thumbnail drawing I used to pitch this story.
In the earliest version of the story, the alien moved like a sentient pile of rocks but that was later changed to a goop material to make it easier to animate.
The Astronaut's character turn-around with color exploration.
Because this film was based around my own emotions, it was only fitting to make her look very similar to myself. Same hair color, skin color, body type, even the same sweatpants i wore everyday.
Exploration of The Alien's crab form.
I knew that it would first look like a rock and then when startled reveal that it looks like a crab. Here i am experimenting with different body shapes. I eventually went with the low square-like body shape in the middle. Made more sense for a creature who was gonna be skittering around.
The Alien's crab form character turn-around.
It was at this point when the crab, and the moon environment it was trying to camouflage into, was changed from a grey to a light blue because blue was a prettier color.
A test to make sure all colors fit together. I gave The Astronaut a pink spacesuit because it stood out more against the mainly blue environment.
I redrew the scene i originally pitched with to test out the finalized character designs. The final version of the scene uses slightly simpler versions of the characters with looser line art.
