Researching the 1940s lifestyle was a unique challenge, particularly Eastern European style was newly introduced to us. Based on the German short story The Metamorphosis, our project analyzed how the character’s emotions evolve over their lifetimes. 


Beginning with the core concept, we studied World War II architecture, costumes, and social characteristics, interpreting these elements through the lens of our main character and his broken family’s status. To create a unique visual identity, We blended the Soviet-Era architecture with fantasy elements.  Every character was passionately created from sculpting to rigging. 


We created beat boards to focus specifically on the relationship between the father and his daughter. The color palette evokes a vintage mood, balancing with warmth and desperation of family moments. The emotional hues progress with the story to guide the audience’s motion. To ensure the consistency of painterly artistic choice, we have developed a custom shader in Blender. This allows for better real-time rendering while achieving the painterly, impressionist texture we aimed for.