Here’s some of the pre-production work that went into creating ‘Return’.
This is just a snapshot and by no means all of it. The story itself was probably revised completely 4-5 times and there were several designs of different environments/characters that were scrapped due to not being right for the film. During pre-production, there were a lot of films and games that heavily inspired the final idea. Jonathan Blow’s ‘Braid’, Playdead’s ‘Limbo’ and Gaspar Noe’s ‘Enter the Void’ were certainly the main points of inspiration, but there were plenty of others.
In any case, I hope you guys get a kick out of seeing some of the designs. Cheers.
Character design progression:
Environment design progression:
Final storyboard:
Designs for the background advertisements:
James Young Animation 