Windsage is an animated short and music video with a hand-drawn soul. It was recognized with a Rosie Award nomination for Best Animation. 

The film follows a curious flying creature on a surreal journey, wandering through strange skies and structures, and ultimately finding a friend. Every frame is crafted by hand. Characters, landscapes, and architecture come together to create a world that feels natural, tactile, and deeply personal. 

Bringing Windsage to life meant turning ink and paper into motion without losing the warmth of the originals. Digitizing the drawings was the first hurdle to overcome.  The scans had to carry the tooth of the paper, the wobble of the line, and the slight imperfections that make the work feel alive. 

Animation was the next challenge. These characters were born as illustrations, not rigs. Guiding illustrations into motion required creative problem-solving. I used careful layering, thoughtful rig setups, and frame-by-frame fixes to preserve the hand-drawn feel. 

Every decision came back to one promise. Protect the art. Keep the texture, keep the character, keep the soul.

The goal of Windsage was simple: to marry traditional craft with modern animation. Through careful digitization, we preserved the painterly grain of the drawings, allowing characters and landscapes to retain their original charm and fine detail. 

In parallel, we solved the technical puzzle of animating hand-drawn assets. The pipeline was built to respect the art first, then bring it to life on screen. The aim remained constant throughout: to create a film that looks beautiful and feels genuine, with an emotional resonance that lingers long after the last frame.

The Windsage pipeline was labour-intensive and intentionally hands-on. It began on paper, and characters, landscapes, and architectural forms were drawn by hand to preserve a natural, lived-in look. 

We scanned and digitized every piece, then refined textures in Adobe Creative Suite to keep a painterly finish that matched the originals. Rigging and animation were completed in After Effects with DUIK. Editing was conducted in Premiere Pro and After Effects. Final composites were assembled in DaVinci Resolve. Audio was edited and mastered in Adobe Audition to add depth and atmosphere. 

This end-to-end approach solved the early technical hurdles and led to a short that feels polished, tactile, and personal.