Render Testing

With less than two weeks until I pitch my grad film, I've taken some time to work on a small render test which demonstrates the render style I'm aiming for. I'm gunning for something a little bit different from the typical "3D" style - I want to create a 3D film that simulates the flat cel-shaded look of 2D animation. So many beautiful films have achieved this, and I can't resist having a stab at it myself. 2D has wonderful appeal and allows for stylisation, whilst 3D maintains solid form and structure and permits the use of technical enhancements that 2D can't take full advantage of. Combining the two provides the advantages of both and offers solutions to their disadvantages. So, after lots of rigorous tutorial-watching and hours spent playing with settings and waiting for renders, here's what I've achieved so far. (wingless, for now :))

I rendered this in two passes - one of the Surface Shader, one of the shadows - and composited them in Photoshop. It's far from a final result, but I've learnt a lot from doing it. Hopefully, with a little more learning and experimenting, I can get something I'm really happy with. :D

Finally, here's the character sheets I did before modelling!