In lieu of a traditional card, this year
Maxon has enlisted the talents of Swiss-based character designer and animation director,
Neil Stubbings, to create an animated holiday greeting entitled, “Late Shift.”
Enjoy it now.
Stubbings draws inspiration for the film from classic cartoons and describes his style as “contemporary CGI that mimics the look and feel of traditional animation.” The one-minute piece leverages the company’s award-winning 3D software,
Cinema 4D, to create a quirky storyline of Santa and his elves racing against the clock to deliver last minute holiday gifts.
“Neil was a natural choice to create our first-ever animated holiday card,” said Paul Babb, Head of Worldwide Marketing for Maxon. “His style is so reminiscent of the classic Christmas cartoons we all grew up on. We were thrilled he was willing to take on the project.”
Stubbings was given complete creative freedom by Maxon to come up with the concept. “Normally, I design the characters first, but for this film, the environment was equally important because it almost takes on the role of a supporting character,” he says. The characters were designed directly in Cinema 4D and the artist also relied on the shader tools to achieve a classic, painterly look for which he is best known.
