Creating such a small 3D character in general or even a video takes more time and patience than many people think. For many people, it is hard to imagine the effort required to create just one minute of film. Especially if only one artist creates it :-)

After my sketches, some of which I still create classically on paper, I usually model directly in zBrush. It's probably the best way to let off steam artistically and try out new things. I even painted the basic textures on the thumbnails within the software. Later it was finalised in Substance Painter.

Unwrapping the UV's and splitting them into UDIM's was done with the software Blender.

Rigging & Posing

In Blender, all the figures were equipped with an armature system. It is a very time consuming and important process in which it is best not to make any mistakes, as this will come back to haunt you later during the animations. Later, various standard poses were created for each individual Thumbi. This speeds up the animation afterwards immensely.

So, what actually happens behind the scenes in such a short video? Here's a little insight...

A script... better a kingdom for an author!!! Unfortunately I haven't found anyone yet, but I can say that this is something that has to be done by professionals. I tried it myself and wrote a complete script.

I then collected or created all the necessary assets such as trees, balls, snow, etc. and then created the scenes.

The storyboard ended up being about 10 pages long. I only had to do it for myself, so it's kept simple. There's no point starting without a clear script and storyboard, it's the battle plan from start to finish :-)

If you really want to do it well and also use sound effects for your purposes, it makes sense to get the composer/sound designer on board.

The scene with the Christmas tree: I thought of a simple image with snowfall in the Alps. A warm, calm wooden floor as a contrast and a cute Christmas tree as the central element.

The scenes were created and rendered in Blender's EEVEE engine. It is fast and beautiful. Above all, it allows more experimentation than a real ray-traced engine like Cycles. But Cycles is all-powerful... always these decisions :-))

Below are the scenes in various stages. Most of the time everything looks a bit flat and in 3D it's always about using as little as possible for maximum output... the scenes have to be designed to take as little rendering time as possible.

Postproduction & Music

I am incredibly lucky that my father is a film music composer. He was involved in every film and gave the film a final touch and depth with his creativity and skill. It was his work that made the films complete. Above all, he always managed to expand the story further or have more things happen subtly in the background.