Story

In the past few years I have been obsessed with watching trainhopping adventures uploaded to youtube.
I found myself fantasizing about stories of romance set in the dark interiors of boxcars hurtling across the american countryside. There is something beautfiul about the downtrodden and forgotten industrial towms that freight trains weave through. Viewers may pick up on a queer atmosphere to the short film, which is intentional. Trainhopping is a lifestyle that attracts people living on the margins of society, queers, homeless and people with drug issues who are seeking some kind of escape.

I used a story structure popular in japan called kishotenketsu, which shifts focus away from character motivations and conflicts and more toward a poetic style storytrlling.

Pre-vis

My concept for this project was to test how fast i could make a 3D short film from scratch and by myself. My inspiration was mostly from alberto mielgo and ERSATZ. (tryth be told I havent watched ERSATZ in its entirity yet...)

I sculpted the characters from a base mesh, adorned them with clothes from https://connect.clo-set.com/, then rigged them with rigify using the automatic weight painting.

Timeline

I spent a couple months fulltime on this project, moving as quickly as I could to reach the character animation.