When we began working on Spiral, the goal was to create a frame-by-frame animation in a sci-fi setting that also forms a loop. The story follows our protagonist, who, after crash-landing on an unknown planet, searches for a way to escape its harsh environment. However, on her way back to her spaceship, she encounters a strange and hostile creature. A fierce battle ensues, but she is ultimately defeated. Yet, rather than meeting a permanent end, she is resurrected by a cloning mechanism within the rescue capsule seen at the beginning of the animation - thus, the cycle repeats.
After developing this concept, I translated the plot into a storyboard and created several concept sketches and illustrations for both the protagonist and the alien creature.
With the storyboard and character designs finalized, I began working on a rough animatic. Once that was complete, I moved on to the most challenging and time-consuming phase of the project, which was creating the animations line art. Capturing the characters movements was particularly difficult, especially for the creature and the fight scene, as nearly every frame of it had to be drawn individually to ensure fluid and dynamic motion.
Once the line art was completed, I moved on to coloring. This phase took considerably less time, since the animation features mainly flat colors with a simple cel-shaded artstyle.
With the animation finished, the final steps involved adding sound effects and our original soundtrack to the video. Before the final cut, we also incorporated subtle lighting effects to enhance realism in some key scenes. And with that, Spiral was completed.
