Ollie! The Boy That Became What He Ate

Ollie! The Boy That Became What He Ate is a children’s television show on CBC Kids. What makes this show so special is its mixture of photographic textures and vector drawings and its use of 2D characters in a 3D environment.

My role on this project was to work with the illustrators and technical director to create 3D props, vehicles, and environments that would seamlessly blend with the 2D characters. We needed the parallax and convenience of 3D but the style of 2D. 3D objects were modeled to look like they were outlined and props and vehicles were rigged to be flat while still maintaining their 3D information so that the 2D characters could easily interact with them.

My tasks on this project were to:

• interpret concept designs and storyboards to create 2D and 3D environments

• model numerous environments, props, and vehicles per week to meet production deadlines

• create vector textures and illustrations for props, vehicles, and background elements

• build environment layouts of 2D and 3D assets

• animate background elements such as clouds, water, and foliage

• generate referenced environment master files for the animation team that would update automatically should any art direction be changed during production

• train and supervise new members of the modeling team.

You can watch a full episode here!