The Pearce Sisters (2007)

The Pearce Sisters, directed by Aardman director Luis Cook, tells the black-hearted tale of two weather-beaten old spinsters who live on a remote strip of coast and eke out a rather dismal existence from catching and smoking fish. One day they heave a half-drowned sailor out of the sea and set about reviving him – but when he fails to appreciate their efforts, a dark and grim aspect of the sister’s way of life is revealed…

Luis Cook wanted somehow to mix 3d cgi with 2d. So he animated everything in the computer with cg models and then printed the frames out and worked them over in 2d. He then filled in the details and expressions and scanned it all over again in 3d. The 3d gives the characters a sense of reality, weight and volume which is important to the narrative. To hold it all together aesthetically Cook produced a fully rendered design for all 180 of the shots. The backgrounds were taken from the Photoshop layers as were all the textures placed on the models.
Dialogue-free and chock-full of animation, the characters are harsh and unpleasant in appearance. Every detail is visible, from the strands in a bundle of fish nets to the rain beating on their weathered faces.