Mufasa Drought

Mufasa's home environment experiencing drought conditions until rain arrives, quickly followed by flash floods that eventually wash Mufasa away.

I was a Senior VAD Illustrator on the Mufasa film and I worked with the art department and production designer Mark Friedberg to design and create environments within unreal engine. These environments were then used to shoot the animatic which was then presented to Disney. I was responsible for environment layout and some of the asset creation and I aided in optimization, troubleshooting, and driving for VR scouts for the director and department heads.

The most challenging part of this environment was figuring out flood and destruction timing and design in a way that both felt natural to the environment but also worked for the story and animation. A lot of work went into figuring out the progression of the organ rocks area destruction and how the dam breaks apart enough that it is able to burst when it is finally hit by the elephant.

Director: Barry Jenkins
Production Designer: Mark Friedberg
SSAD: Yuri Bartoli, Dan Webster
Art Directors: Gary Warshaw, Jared Gerbig, Erica Hohf
Virtual Art Director: Sydnie Ponic
VAD illustrators: Johanna Greene (me), Julia Kodl, Paul Martersteck, Laura Krause, Joy Lea, Jonathan Giacalone