Ursa Major (Short film)
Date: May 2024
Type: School Project
Tools: Maya, Mari
Role: Lead Environment Artist, Lighting Artist & Texture Artist
Style: Stylized, Stop-motion
Project Breakdown
Overview
Summary: Ursa Major is a 3D animated short created as part of our final graduation project at NAD, blending the tactile charm of stop-motion aesthetics with fully digital workflows. Set in a whimsical space-themed nursery, the story follows a teddy bear who must prove to the other toys that he’s more than just a plush object — he’s real, brave, and full of heart.
Inspiration: The film’s visual world was built around a fusion of Baroque elegance and futuristic sci-fi design. My goal was to create a setting that felt rich, ornamental, and slightly surreal — like a space station designed by a toymaker with a flair for drama.
As one of the core environment and lighting artists, I was responsible for:
Modeling and texturing the full environment, including furniture, lighting props, and set pieces
Drawing stylistic inspiration from Baroque furniture and translating it into a stylized sci-fi world
Modeling and texturing the robot character, a key supporting figure in the story
Lighting all scenes to evoke a handcrafted, stop-motion feel — using soft shadows and textured materials to mimic the look of physical miniatures
My role
I worked in Maya for modeling and Foundry’s Mari for detailed texturing. The environment was built to support the emotional beats of the story — from cozy shadows to dramatic highlights — while remaining playful and readable. Lighting was carefully planned to enhance the illusion of physical scale and materiality.
