TOOLS
Cinema 4D, X-Particles, Adobe After Effects
ROLE
Design / Animation
I collaborated with the Intuit Museum to bring a series of immersive weather events to life for their Henry Darger exhibition. The installation featured large-scale projections on two walls inside a re-creation of Darger’s room, using 3D animated clouds inspired by his distinct illustration style.
I created six atmospheric “cloud events,” each lasting 15–20 minutes and looping seamlessly. Every event presented a different mood—from calm cumulus skies to dramatic storms—accompanied by sound design to deepen the emotional tone.
To achieve the painterly aesthetic, I developed a custom workflow between Cinema 4D, Redshift, After Effects, and Topaz. The clouds were modeled with custom paint-textured shaders, then emitted as particles and composited using layered 3D passes and post effects. The result was a dreamlike, evolving visual environment that honored Darger’s imaginative world while reinterpreting it in motion.
"I figure that it's better to be a sucker who makes something than a wise guy who is too cautious to make anything at all."
- Henry Darger
INSPIRED BY:
“Terror in the Sky”, 1962
According to the Carl Hammer Gallery, Henry Darger was fascinated by weather, especially tornadoes, which often featured in his paintings. The ominous weather in his epic story "Realms of the Unreal" is sometimes associated with the tornado he experienced as a child. Darger's paintings frequently contrast peaceful landscapes with scenes of war and natural calamities, as evidenced by his images of storms, blustering winds, and turbulent clouds.
Henry Darger’s Blengiglomenean Serpents And Vivian Girls
Process
DEVELOPED CUSTOM WORKFLOW:
- Cinema 4D for cloud modeling and animation
- Redshift for stylized rendering using custom paint-based shaders
- X-Particles to drive drifting cloud behaviors
- After Effects + Topaz AI for compositing and upscale resolution to the video's correct dimension size for projection mapping.
HENRY DARGER'S ROOM
Henry Darger’s Room
HENRY DARGER'S ROOM
In the recreated environment of Henry Darger's room, procedural branches were designed and animated as shallow depth-of-field silhouettes projected onto two windows, drawing inspiration from Darger's illustration style.
