Cumuli - Project Overview and Initial Concepts

Story Synopsis

In a crystal world nestled in the clouds, after many years of oppression from an evil and corrupt queen, a lone worker makes a stand against the tyranical regime. At the behest of the queen, the young worker is delivering an infant female for sacrifice. Passing the guarded checkpoint, the worker slips poison to the infant before entering the queen's chamber. Excited by her gift, the queen snaps at the infant with great vehemence and snatches it from the worker's hands. Greedily gobbling the child, the queen has failed to notice that it was poisoned. She is also unaware of the worker who has now revealed her identity as another female. The queen does not have time to react as the poison takes hold and she turns to crystal and shutters. Smiling, the female takes her place on the throne as the new queen.

This is the storyline for one of the short 3D computer animation I worked on. I was responsible for some of the character designs, 3D modelling, rigging, texturing and animating. More specifically, I worked on the worker/female and the guards.

Visually, we went for a steampunk style, whilst incorporating art deco in the decoration of the environments.  The crystals are the source of energy for the city, the queen being its distributor. Only the females are able to be chosen as the rulers of the colony, thus taking on the burden of the throne. Each Cumuli (citizens of the City) was born with a crystal in their chest, the crystal being their life force. The distinction between male/female is that the females are born with an extra pair of arms.

Hence, the worker "version" of the female (with helmet tag "WK105") has a bulky armor in order to conceal both her breasts and the second pair of arms.

Concept Art

These are some designs I drew for the mask/helmets of the Cumuli.

Stylistic variations of the Cumuli embryo's for the murals.

The murals depict the history of the City and are carved onto the walls of some of the outer corridors.

To the left some designs of what would be the symbol of the colony.
The idea behind this to make something  which would show both the structural element of the City but also the idea of life force and nature, the nature being the crystals.
They were not used in the end because we found them too complex. Still, they were a good experiment!