Solar Opposites: History of The Wall
On January 27, 2020, I began working full-time on the animated series Solar Opposites. I was commuting to my first studio job since 2014 to work alongside talented designers, storyboard artists, directors and production wizards.
Together, we began crafting the second season of Solar. And one of my first assignments was to draw murals depicting the history of The Wall. The Wall is our show-within-a-show, taking place alongside the main stories that focus on Solar’s family of displaced aliens living on Earth. It features a society of tiny humans shrunk down by sci-fi and trapped living within a wall of the teenage aliens’ bedroom.
As a character designer, I thought all my assignments would require me drawing in the established style of the show. So I was pleasantly surprised when our art director, the illustrative YaoYao Ma Van As, asked me to draw these murals in my own personal style. Hot damn! I gleefully tore into the project, starting with rough sketches on paper. Then moving on to refined drawings in Photoshop which were ultimately painted by YaoYao herself
This post includes just a few of the murals we collaborated on. You can view them all at www.davecrosland.com. Seasons 1 - 4 of Solar Opposites are now streaming on Hulu, with season 5 premiering August 12, 2024.
Be well and stay tuned,
- Dave C.