This is a piece I´ve worked on recently for a cable television network. It´s a flying island, a magical toy-land done in Maya , Photoshop, and After Effects.
I started with a few color sketches, trying to capture the mood and general composition of the scene.
As soon as the director choose one of the ideas, I went into Maya and modelled the island shape according to the image. I used a high definition version of the same as a camera-projected texture (so we could move the camera around a little bit) . My friend Henry Nabeta did the castle tower model, and I added it to the scene.
I did the final composite in After Effects, adding multi layers for the BG sky , separate clouds (in front and back of the island), PaintFX waterfalls and smoke trails, atmospheric haze, and a cartoon sun (sun and airplane models by Fernando Ladeia).
The rendering of the 3d elements was done with the native Maya renderer, using simulated global illumination.
Comments are very welcome. Thanks!