Wolfwalkers — Ludo Gavillet

I feel really lucky to have been part of such a special film. I was wishing to work with Cartoon Saloon ever since I saw “The Secret of Kells”, even if I knew this would be a big challenge for me style wise. I was looking for being pushed out of my comfort zone and forced to go for something bold and graphic. Well, my wish was answered all right ! But the best was the team. What an amazing group of talented artist, passionate and creative, super open minded and genuinely kind and supportive.

I’m really proud of this movie, clearly a one of a lifetime kind of experience.

I was in charge of scene illutration and lead background art. Work done between 2018 and 2019.

Directors: Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart - Art director: Maria Pareja

All images © Cartoon Saloon and Melusine Productions

Scene Illustration.

The idea of scene illustrations is to gather all the concept art and graphic bible material and digest it into the final style of the film through one illustration per sequence. Layout, linework, background color and sometimes character posing is done by one artist. These illustration serve as reference but also end up to be actual shots in the final edit.

I had a wonderful time doing these. Working closely with the directors, it was all about understanding how much story we can bring with the backgrounds. And playing around with actual pencil and paint brought me a lot of joy ! Good times.

Backgrounds color.

The interesting thing about Wolfwalkers is that it actually has two art directions which has to live together somehow. From a simple concept we get this bold contrast and every department brought another layer to it. Coloring these backgrounds felt like a balancing act to me. As everything was so rich and full of details, my main goal was to built a strong value structure and make sure the shot was as clear as possible.

Here again, it was really interesting to have the directors pushing us to follow the storytelling and thinking about what story tells a soft watercolor wash or a strong drybrush stroke for exemple.

As a lead background artist I was mainly in charge of key backgrounds. Forest background are painted with watercolor and twicked in photoshop. Town backgrounds are done in photoshop using scans from lino cut shapes prints. Two completely different techniques !

Backgrounds linework.

I also joined the linework department for a couple of weeks. Here as well, two different styles and techniques. Pencil on paper with a lively and rough line for the forest. Ink and feltpen on paper going through a cool process to get a linocut feeling for the town. Good craic with these !