Art is a collaborative process with artists and companies from around the world including

North Star ( http://www.xing-xing.com/EN/team/ ) in China,

Boali ( ( http://www.bdbros.com/ ) in Canada,

Sharp Image ( http://www.sharpimageonline.com/ ) in Pakistan and

Origami Digital ( http://origamidigital.com/ ) in Los Angeles, CA USA.

The process is very iterative. A paragraph from the book will be turned into a sketch which  becomes a drawing with more detail after a bit of feedback, and then a painting, and then finally a 3D set or character. Often several artists will draw the characters with different interpretations of the same words. Some times the same image will have different interpretations and meanings and it’s a tough choice to decide which one tells the story best.

Here is the same scene as above from a different artist.

Then another view from Boali (final concept)

This is then turned into a CG model that allows the computer generated camera to fly around the scene as long as we fill in enough details.

This is repeated for each scene until we have every major scene in the movie. Here is a sketch of a scene.

Then we turn it into a more detailed sketch.

And finally as a 3D model allowing the camera to fly around the scene.

We can add layers with animated characters and action including special effects and magic.

As the scenes become more real, we notice missing features like french doors above, or the sky is the wrong color, or there aren’t the two moons and tower in each view, which of course is relatively impossible for all windows to face the same direction, but in the world of CG, we get to do the impossible as long as we are consistent.

 

Here are a few looks at Daav and Arjay from the book.

and another from a different artist.

then with some feedback more detail is added until we get