PROJECT OVERVIEW

3D Storytelling Animation | Gunner School Shadowship Program
Team Project • 2025

As part of the Gunner School Shadowship Program at Lunar North, I collaborated with a team to create a 30-second animated short that told a story through environment design, character creation, and motion. The project challenged us to learn 3D design from scratch while developing a visual style that blended 3D assets with a hand-drawn 2D aesthetic. 

Our brief was to create a short narrative-driven animation while learning how to work effectively as a creative team. We focused on:

• Learning 3D design and animation workflows

• Creating visuals that made 3D objects feel hand-drawn

• Developing a cohesive story from concept through final animation

• Strengthening collaboration through shared ideation, design, and production processes 

Our team created Ramen River, a whimsical nature-documentary parody set within a ramen ecosystem. The story follows a river of broth populated by vegetable-inspired creatures, culminating in a reveal that connects the ecosystem to a family's meal. The animation explores themes of nourishment, interconnectedness, and the beauty of everyday experiences. 

We began by brainstorming concepts in Miro and collaboratively developing a script and storyboard. From there, we refined the visual direction through moodboards, styleframes, color exploration, character design, and animation testing. Throughout production, we iterated on feedback, evolving from a flat vector approach into a richer visual style with added texture, depth, and environmental detail. 
This project helped me develop foundational 3D animation skills, strengthen my understanding of visual storytelling, and gain experience collaborating on a production pipeline from concept to final delivery. It also pushed me to explore techniques for combining 3D assets with a stylized, illustration-inspired look. 

Tools Used

• Blender

• Adobe After Effects

• Adobe Illustrator

• Miro

• Google Workspace