Background Painting Tutorial

As the lead environment artist for the Holi firepit scene, I created a tutorial to help the other artists achieve the same look.

Holi Street Background Paintings

I did the following background for the opening scenes of Gulabi. The scene is set the morning after the Holi festival, and is a tender morning moment. Using the color script and after talking with the director about scene’s significance in the story, our stylistic inspirations, I chose to use cool, punchy pinks in the shadows.

Saturated, glowing sunlight was also an important motif that would be carried through the film. I developed a method of adding that glow using layer masks so that it could maintain consistency within the scene.

Holi Street Location Research

Research, location scouting, and notes done to understand cultural context. During the research and design stages, I also referred to our director’s resource sheets, which included interviews with Indian students and people who had lived in Uttar Pradesh, as well as conducting research on the significance of the Holi Festival and how it would be celebrated specifically in Banda.

Holi Street Prop Design

Fight Scene Style Development

Our Art Director gave me a rough color key of what she wanted the fight scene to look like, as well as directions . Using the team’s 3D set of the room and the storyboard panel, I made a layout of the space. Our Art Director wanted the scene to contrast harshly with the tender scenes at the beginning of the story, so we went for a strong, graphic look. I explored a few different variations of what “strong and graphic” might look like in the scene.