Imagine Museum

One of the bigger projects I've worked on this year is the Imagine Learning Level Two Opening Sequence. I've been designing/building all the characters and backgrounds for the wraparound setting type stuff for Level Two, so I also got to do a 60 second animation introducing everyone.

I've posted some of the backgrounds previously, but realized I've never posted the actual Museum exterior. I had the worst time figuring out what the museum should look like until I stumbled across pictures of the Mont Saint-Michel Sundial project. Level One is set on a sort of tropical island (Imagine Island - we're clever that way with naming things!) so I decided the Museum was on a sort of neighboring island, perhaps part of the larger Imagine Archipelago, and based it off the idea of a citadel on a big ol' rock.

Below is the sketch I was finally happy with. This was imported into Flash to use as reference. I built all the different building sections on separate layers, exported all those layers back to Photoshop to add a little shadow and texture to everything.

The start of the movie is a pan through the palm trees of Imagine Island, past the lighthouse and then a zoom to the Museum, all the way up to the golden front doors, then through the doors into the lobby. Took me forever, but was really fun to put it all together.