Surreal Solo Short Film Exploring Ritual & Renewal
Created entirely by hand over three years, this project is Robin Lochmann's work without AI.
Robin Lochmann spent three years working on this six-minute short, following a group of mysterious characters through a ritualistic transformation, which might remind you of 2018's Annihilation or Love, Death & Robots, all set to the music of Robot Koch. Chrysalis merges landscapes shot by Robin in France with fully hand-crafted 3D characters.
The artist highlights that none of the visuals were AI-generated. Robin used Cinema 4D and iClone for animation and world-building, while character motion capture was done with the Rokoko Smartsuit. Cloth simulations were created in Marvelous Designer, and rendering was handled in Octane Render. Sculpting and texturing were completed using ZBrush and Substance 3D Painter, and post-production was done in After Effects, Premiere Pro, and DaVinci Resolve.
Chrysalis
Chrysalis
Chrysalis
Chrysalis
Chrysalis
Chrysalis
Chrysalis
Chrysalis
We asked Robin about his inspirations, and he noted that one element from Love, Death & Robots' Jibaro served as a direct influence: subtle shifts in hue and luminosity that flicker throughout the film. Robin explained that he experimented with similar effects in Chrysalis, using subtle purple and teal pulses at key moments. "They're much slower and more discreet," he said, "but I think they add some subconscious psychedelia in the right places." He also emphasized that he draws inspiration from more than just CGI and film: music, paintings, sculpture, and other creative practices can all spark ideas. "It's important to look beyond your horizons and comfort zone."
A 15-minute making-of documentary from Robin will drop on March 26th. The documentary goes live at 17:30 CEST.
"It did test my patience at times, but I learnt a lot. I just love making stuff, so I jumped in the middle of the film and started working on it. I didn't fully plan it out in the beginning. It's a luxury you can only afford on personal projects, as there's no deadline.
I was inspired by artists working in different fields who would tell me about their process of working intuitively without a certain end goal. I wanted to try working like that, too, for a change, even though it went against everything that I had learned from traditional filmmaking. It was fun in terms of creative exploration, but it's a bad idea when trying to make a full animation.
Next time, I'll go back to the traditional method of planning and storyboarding everything clearly beforehand. The result was that I spent time going the wrong direction and then would change the concept again. It's obvious advice, but if you want to manage your time as efficiently as possible, do all the boring planning first, even if it's not creatively satisfying. It will help you in the long run. Apart from that, just from the process of making the film, I deepened my understanding of all of the different tools as well as the soft skills like composition and lighting."
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