Animation for Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey 2

I’m back at it again for round 2! But with a twist.

In the first Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey animation, I used a combination of 2D illustration and compositing. In the second film I wanted to spice it up a little by still having 2D illustrations, which I’ve had plenty of time to practice when making my own feature film, ‘You Just Lost The Game’, but this time, I layer them out into a 3D composition to give them plenty of depth and a eerie feel.

Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey 2 animation where Winnie the Pooh holds a head in 100 Acre Wood while Christopher Robin runs away from a car on fire.

Animation from Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey 1.

Glow and Black Mist

There were two main aspects that I wanted to push in this animation over the first. I wanted the air to feel ominous. For that reason, I added a volume so that the further something was from the camera, the more faded into darkness it was, like looking through a black mist. The second was to have any drawings that were supposed to emit light, like fire, ACTUALLY emit light in the 3D environment and therefore illuminate other drawings.

In combination, with the slight 3D parallax and 2D character and flame movements, it gave everything a spooky feel while feeling alive and real, despite being in a storybook. This is definitely worth consideration when the rest of the film (for the most part) was live-action.

Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey 2 animation where Winnie the Pooh and Piglet watch over the town of Ashdown while a riot of people hold flaming torches march into the forest.

Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey 2 animation where hunters run through 100 Acre Wood looking for Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.

Christopher’s Blood

Christopher’s blood was something I wanted to get a little experimental with. Christopher’s guilt and trauma from the events that occurred prior to Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey 2, meant that he felt forever stained and tainted. For that reason, the blood on Christopher was not painted consistently over his character. Each frame, I wanted it to differ slightly so that it felt more metaphorical of his trauma and the way the towns folk saw him, a bloodied killer.

Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey 2 animation where Christopher Robin stands covered in blood in fear.

Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey 2 animation where Christopher Robin stands looking into a mirror covered in blood, traumatised by his past.

Flashback Sequence

The flashback sequence was an interesting one with regards to the animation process. The sequence was designed to feel distressing, so I wanted the imagery to feel unstable and panicked. For this reason I wanted all brushes used to illustrate this animated sequence to feel unstable and highly textured. For this reason, I created this entire sequence in Procreate Dreams.

Procreate Dreams is a software that comes from the creators of Procreate (could you tell). It is their animation version of the software, which works great for us, as Procreate was known for its excellent brushes, and now being able to animate them in a software designed for animation made this experience really enjoyable.

As a result I was able to create imagery that felt unstable and textured to symbolise distraught and panic.

Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey 2 animation where Winnie experiences great pain.

Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey 2 animation where an evil scientist is holding a syringe.

The Honey

Bringing everything together, we have ourselves a delicious series of 10 second animations that would then be edited down into the final film. I particularly had a great time animating the dog as I love the feeling of animation that is high energy and action, my speciality!

Dog barking sequence of animation from Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey 2

For more of my action animation work, you can check out my upcoming project ‘You Just Lost The Game’, or if you’d like to see more animation mixed with horror fantasy live-action, you should check out my debut feature film, ‘Are We Monsters’, all about werewolves, folklore, and animation!

Horror animated sequence from Are We Monsters

Action animated sequence from You Just Lost The Game