Love of Beauty

Nice to Meet You!

I'm Stephanie Sandoval, a motion designer born and raised in the tropical land of San Pedro Sula, Honduras! I am about to graduate with a BFA in Motion Media Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design, where my artistic style has broadened. Ranging from illustration and typography to 3D animation, I am captivated by the incorporation of distinct styles within my work. To put it simply, I'm a lover of all things beautiful. 

However, I've also discovered beauty goes beyond the eye. Aside from visuals, my passion for depth and story have also grown. Keep reading to learn more about my artistic journey throughout my school years...!

Demo Reel

Welcome, welcome to my work! Ranging from illustrative work to 3D animation, this is a compilation of the design and animation I have produced throughout my time in college. Paired with a Latin-style melody, this demo reel is an exposition of my love for catchy beats and snappy keyframes. Whether I must animate a logo, present a product, or set a character in motion, I always aim to do it well. For, I am a firm believer that any idea has the potential to be a brilliant piece of animation. Cheers!

Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)

The brief for this project consisted on creating 2 different animations for 2 different CPG brands within one week. Yet that same week I had two different travel trips and a rough cut to submit for another animation, so my time for these 2 animations was inevitably cut short. Yet, within 3 days, I recreated the can designs in Illustrator for the UV wraps, textured, lighted, and animated these mock social media posts. 

One of the most time-consuming parts was recreating the brands' exact packaging design. Since I wasn't given any assets, I had to research the exact typefaces, logos, color palette, nutrition facts and graphics used in each can.

Rest

Voilá... my first 3D character design and rig ever! The prompt for this project was to design, model, animate, and rig a 3D character. However, to guide the animation, I decided to add a little plot to it. Based on a true story, Rest follows the life of a student animator. Working non-stop day and night to finish a scene, only to realize she still has many more scenes left. Sounds familiar? This humorous piece transports me to every project I have showcased in this portfolio, the hard battle of work-life balance!

I started my process by designing in Photoshop and then modeling in Cinema 4D...

We were originally taught to use Rubber Hose Style rigging. But after storyboarding and settling on my story, I realized Rubber Hose wasn't going to bend my character's elbows as sturdy as I wanted them to. To solve this, I went ahead and researched how to do IK rigging and weight managing.

Then I began modeling the props, choosing a color palette, and lighting the whole scene...

The Bear

This brief was to create a rebrand package for any TV show of our choosing. Although we were given the option to work individually, it had been this class's history that the strongest projects usually came from groups, so my colleague Lauren Neu and I, being committed to our craft, decided to pair up to create this award-winning recipe. The Bear is a broadcast package created over the span of 7 weeks with just a team of 2. Our roles were divided equally among the 2. From start to finish, we met every single day for 7 weeks to concept, direct, storyboard, design, animate, and composite. All done together.

The broadcast package had to include a main title and a toolkit (bumper, mortises, lower thirds, and social media promotional materials). Our final deliverables included the main title sequence, lower thirds, a mortise, a bump out, an animated poster, social media promos, and some thumbnail designs for Hulu's interface. Scroll down below to see the main title, my process, and my favorite things I worked on!

For the vent scene I started by modeling the vent and animating in C4D. To keep the gritty animated textures I rotoscoped them in Photoshop, and composited everything with transitions in After Effects.

Probably my favorite scene to work on, the bridge, was a combination of gradient-mapped live-action footage that I composited with textures I animated in Photoshop!

This animated poster is another one of my favorite deliverables! I created fire-looking bear paws using frame-by-frame animation.

San Diego Design Week 2023

This project's brief was to create a promotional video for any professional event of my choosing. Somehow, that same week I came across the San Diego Design Week 2020 logo. It was "love at first sight" hahaha! I love playing with geometric shapes and a clean vector style. However, when searching for their 2023 branding, I found that they hadn't released anything yet.

So... I decided to design my own branding and logo.

My concept of San Diego Design Week (SDDW) 2023 is focused on an important element of contemporary design style: gradients. The logo is inspired by both, the beautiful gradients seen in nature, particularly those of the San Diego sky, and also by the vibrant and fresh designs that are popping in our modern culture,

Both the logo and the event promo are meant to showcase the vibrant color palette, and the bold abstract shapes that characterize SDDW.

In The Beginning

(work in progress)

As my time in art school comes to an end, my most ambitious project yet began, a passion project. In the Beginning is a short animated film that arose from the depths of my heart. Aiming to combine my artistic passion with my life’s philosophy, I wrote a short story that encapsulates where I derive purpose in life from. The story follows the life of a girl whose heart was broken by the world. Yet, amidst her brokenness, she found the only way for healing. Created with custom-made Photoshop brushes, enjoy a snippet of the style frames, voice-over, and animation that's to come in the future!

Bibliophilia

Words transform us. These are typographic design frames I created for fun exploring my love for books, featuring an excerpt from The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien. Created combining techniques in Photoshop, Illustrator, and personal book photography.

Adiós!

Aside from developing my technical abilities in motion design, my passion for storytelling has grown. Writing my own scripts, developing narratives, and creating my own voice-overs are a few of the new interests I have discovered. As my life expands beyond the classroom, I look forward to continue learning and creating high-quality work whose charm relies not only on stunning visuals but also on the beauty of its story.

Thank you for following along my journey today! May our love for beautiful things guide our craft towards a better future. 

"I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares." - Saul Bass.

That is what I aim to do.

Sincerely,

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