Not so Happily Ever After Last year’s Rookie-Award winner explains her film ‘The End,’ a parody of fairytale love stories.

“The End” is a smart, funny animated short that subverts our expectations of fairytale endings. Centered on a princess who will stop at nothing to marry her gallant knight, it follows her struggles to change her fate.

A solo creation by 3D character artist and animator Alexandria Siah, “The End” was her senior project for a degree course at Ringling College of Art and Design. Created with ZBrush, Substance Painter and Maya, the comic short reflects Siah’s love of storytelling and craft.

In addition to garnering acclaim on the festival circuit, Siah won Rookie of the Year for 3D Animation in 2022. She also picked up Best Animation gongs at the New York International Film Awards and Golden Nugget International Film Festival, among others.

We asked this emerging talent to tell us more about herself and the project. Here’s what she had to say.

Siah: I always found animation beautiful, and though I love 2D animation, there’s something about 3D that makes me want to live in that world. Maybe because real life is 3D, it lets me imagine myself in that universe much more easily than a 2D world can.

I want to tell stories that are loved by both young and old. I’m inspired by [director and Studio Ghibli founder] Hayao Miyazaki, who says: “I do believe in the power of story. I believe that stories have an important role to play in the formation of human beings, that they can stimulate, amaze and inspire their listeners.”

A lot of people do not see animation as a medium of art but rather as a frivolous way to entertain their children with no other purpose. But animation is much more than that: it can be beautiful, charming and tell stories about serious topics that stand the test of time.

Siah: As the major project on the animation course, we had to create a solo film limited to two characters and 1 minute 55 seconds of screen time. This included all the story creation, boarding and designing all the way to final compositing, and we had one year to work on our film.

I’ve always liked fairy tales and everything medieval, and because I'm not that great at drawing, 3D was a great solution. I first started working on a story about a queen who had to keep going back in time to make things right, but it ended up being too big for the scope of the project, so I had to rethink and scale it back.

The knight character was inspired by the scene in Disney’s “Enchanted” where Prince Edward gets run over by bicycles. I thought it was hilarious that someone could be so blinded by love that they just forgo all common sense.

As for Princess Hilderose, I grew up watching anime characters who were feminine and petite in nature but had inhuman, monstrous strength. In the growing society of women empowerment, I wanted to show that a petite princess who likes dresses and is excited to get married to her “himbo” of a husband can still be strong.

Siah: ZBrush, Maya, Premiere, Substance Painter and Nuke were my key software tools. I also used Marvelous Designer for the simulation of the wedding dress. The workflow started with the story creation process, and we all had to pitch our ideas to the board of professors.

Once approved, I started boarding and character design, followed by modeling the characters and environment and rigging them for the layout design. Again, each stage was reviewed by the professors and guest artists before animation. And finally, the lighting effects and composting.

What I found most challenging was having to execute every aspect perfectly for each milestone we had to work on. Covid made it hard to collaborate with others and working alone was definitely a big challenge.

Siah: ZBrush definitely helped the character modeling process. I wanted the characters to be stylized but still visually appealing, and it was hard to take a 2D drawing of a character and visualize it in 3D.

But with my prior knowledge of Maya and ZBrush, and the help of my professors, I was able to achieve right look. I have used ZBrush for about five years now, for the majority of my character creation, as well as a lot of the props and environments.

The set design was inspired by fairytales and children's books, as well as the world of “Tangled”. I wanted to capture that feeling of color in the forest while still being whimsical yet focused enough not to distract from the characters.

For me, ZBrush is so intuitive that it feels artful, rather than mechanical. I’m able to look at my characters from any angle and, with a flick of my pen, move and shift what I want to change with ease.

I like using a variety of brushes when I model my characters. I don't really have a favorite, but I used the Smooth brush a lot, as well as the Stroke brush, for finer details.

I also love adding intricate patterns and textures that hardly anyone will notice, but it makes me happy knowing there's a seam on the Knight’s pants or a fold in Princess Hilderose’s dress that helps to bring their character to life.

Siah: Making “The End” has taught me a lot about the industry and filmmaking process. I'm writing a couple of stories in my personal time, which I hope to pitch to make an animated series. One day, I'm hoping to branch into the film industry. My dream is to work at DreamWorks, as they were the studio that inspired me down this path and I want to give back to them for where I am today.

My goal in animation is always to make the audience feel emotions, whether they laugh at how silly the knight is or the shock of seeing a severed head on the screen. I also want to inspire those who love animation to become animators by showing what one person can achieve.