The Metropolis

“The Metropolis” was a digital background I made for my short animated film, “The World is But a Canvas to the Imagination” (2011). The background had a different life initially as an art panel for a traffic box during the Orange County Traffic Box Competition in the Sumer of 2010. After the contest ended, however, I decided to repurpose the artwork as a background for my animation. What was once a vertical canvas was now transformed into a horizontal canvas. The left and right sides of the city are actually mirror opposites of each other. I was going for a retro aesthetic with an analogous color scheme that would project romanticism for the city. Intentionally there are no lines in the compositions. In its place are borderless shapes in various transparencies that often overlap one another to create a gradual increase in color volume. I was able to create the background primary through Toon Boom Studio and Photoshop. The sunburst effect that you see on the far left corner was created on Sony Vegas through one of their filters. In addition, the bottom portion of the city was mirrored on the Sony software to create the illusion of the city’s reflection being projected on to the lake. The piece is one of my personal favorite 2D artworks.