Student creates award-winning animation using free 3D software

If you watch one thing today, make it this charming animated short My Big Brother by Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) student Jason Rayner. As the title suggests, this beautiful story tells the tale of two brothers, one of whom is not only biologically older but physically gigantic.

Inspired his favourite childhood book Roald Dahl's The BFG, Rayner's idea was to introduce an element of fantasy into reality. This and his relationship with his own siblings lead to a particular sketch in the park one day and the rest, as they say, is history.

Look of distinction

Visually stunning, Rayner created the short's distinctive block modelling style using open source 3D software Blender. Having learnt it from an early age, Rayner used Blender for all the project's modelling work, with the rest of production carried out in Maya. Photoshop was also utilised heavily for concept art and storyboards, and compositing was handled in Nuke.

An emotive and incredibly charming tale, My Big Brother was nominated for nine and won three awards at SCAD's Senior Animation show this year. It also premiered online as one of CartoonBrew's nine selections for its annual BrewTV student film festival hosted last month.