Mekka Nikki background design & painting

Backgrounds I designed and painted for the pilot trailer of the Mekka Nikki TV show project.
Roughly a 6-7 weeks work.
Every shot contains several fully painted layers. They were "animated" in After Effects, adding some very cool parallax effects.
Number of layers varies according to shot complexities, 3 being the minimum to get a good depth effect.

Character illustrations feature on the BGs are from Antoine Bouzin.
Mekka Nikki, created by Exaheva and Félix Laurent.
TV adaptation by Dada Animation & Squarefish.

Concept art for a sky station.
Very fun one to make, loved it.
It didn't end up being painted as the sequence did not appear in the pilot,
but I think it fits here nonetheless.
The assignment was to make it very moody and somber.

Desert wide shot.
Painting rocks was real fun, I like this atmosphere.

Desert wide shot with characters.

Desert close up.

Desert close up with character.

Village wide shot.
Tough one to build, it's a 6 layers scene.
Had a lot of fun playing with light and painting wood.

Village wide shot with character.

Forest wide shot.
Focusing on the middle tree trunk and the moss texture, here.

Forest wide shot with characters.

Forest close up.

Forest close up with characters.

Cave wide shot.
Coming up with the depth feeling and the round shape of the place was challenging.
I painted the waterfalls, subtle water animation FX on them would do the trick.

Cave wide shot with characters.

Cave close up.
Painting these rocks was very pleasant. Contrary to the desert,
I tried to make them look wet and shiny.

Cave close up with character.

Cave carved wall close up.
For this oen I zoomed into the wide shot wall, expanded it a bit and painted over everything to make it as much accurate as possible, for continuity.

Golem exterior wide shot, with character.
Tricky one, showing clearly the whole robot's body while making it buried
in the forest in the dark. Tough balance to find. Quite happy with certain parts of it.