Hugs!
A short 3D animated film about the warmth of a simple hug.
A collaborative 3D animated short film created at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).
Working alongside a talented crew of 14 artists, I served as the Visual Designer and 3D Environment Modeler. The film required a cohesive art direction and meticulously crafted 3D spaces to support its emotional and storytelling goals within a fast-paced production pipeline.
Warmth has to be designed, not just rendered.
The film 'Hugs!' required a warm, inviting, and emotionally resonant world to tell its story. As the visual designer, the challenge was to establish an art style that felt both stylized and grounded, ensuring the environments naturally complemented the character animation without visually overwhelming the scenes.
A storybook palette translated into 3D.
Collaborated closely with the director and concept artists to define the color script, lighting mood, and architectural style. We focused on soft shapes, warm palettes, and an illustrative texture style to give the 3D space a hand-crafted, storybook feel that matched the narrative tone.
Modular sets that 14 artists could build together.
Led the modeling of the primary sets and background props. I optimized the 3D geometry for the rendering pipeline and established a modular asset workflow. This allowed our 14-person team to populate scenes efficiently, maintain visual consistency, and stay strictly within the polygon count budget.
Workflow
Demo
A cohesive world — shipped in two months.
Successfully delivered fully realized 3D environments that met the director's vision within the strict 2-month production sprint. This project deeply honed my ability to maintain visual consistency across a large team and integrate 3D assets seamlessly into a shared, high-pressure animation pipeline.