"The Dark Forest" Throwback | Traditional Oil/ Acrylics Painting + Story project + Animated short

---THE ORIGINAL PAINTING---

Created in 2007 using traditional means such as oils and acrylics on canvas.
Inspiration was my trips to mountains and nearby dark forests. Forests that while being dark and mysterious, they would also emit a feeling of nostalgia, some warmness and other positive feelings that I was hoping I could translate into the painting. Unfortunately, due to some life events, the original piece is no longer in my possession and all Im left is those scans.

The painting was also awarded in couple of sites including Deviantart back in those years.

---THE STORY BEHIND THE PROJECT---

The popularity and reception of the painting put me in the thoughts of further expanding the world of "The Dark Forest" and giving to people an in depth experience. The project would include illustrations and short animations which tell the story of a mysterious fictional forest that people call" the dark forest" for some unknown reason. The whole thing was inspired by constant visits in the mountains and some dark forests while in my earlier years in the mainland. I would often take short trips to several what seemed to be-almost abandoned villages in the mountains that were surrounded by wonderful but also eerie forests.
After having completed the original painting and before it was further developed into a project, there were always ideas of what a universe could be like if it was to be developed in that world and if there was a potential to tell a compelling and mysterious story.

This first illustration was made in 2007 and was uploaded in various sites,but the idea to become an advanced project came a year after its original creation.

---THE SHORT ANIMATED GRAPHIC NOVEL---

After all the ideas , I decided to create a short animation to generate some interest around the project. It was well received back in the days but unfortunately not enough to keep me going further. Working at the same time would make almost impossible to dedicate endless hours into the further development and the only solution would be a funding from the followers, something that never made into reality.
Regardless, it was an amazing experience to create my first ever digital short animation.

The tools that were used to produce this video was: Adobe photoshop Cs4,Corel painter X,Camtasia studio 5,Windows movie maker,and wacom pen tablet.The Dark Forest project,music,text as well all of its illustration are created and copyright ©Manthos Lappas 2007-2009. I was able to compose the music using some generic synths program back then.

I am sorry for the bad video quality but the reality is,
Back then, I was VERY new to digital art and I was clueless at video editing. Another major reason for the low quality was the fact I was working on a very very low end laptop that was not able to handle much bigger resolutions for animations and me not being familiar with digital animation, I made things even more complex in building the entire thing within photoshop.
I was a traditional animator during 2000-2003 so this helped me a little bit to incorporate some ideas and tricks into this one.

---EPILOGUE---

A decade later, The Dark Forest is still a project that has been in the back of my head. Its a world that I would love to revisit and build around it. However, that would mean there should be some sort of support in order to devote into that and with many other side ongoing projects, this may never be even happen.
After technology advanced and I learned much more in digital tools, I even imagined it as a sort game like interactive experience that I could potentially build in time. Sadly, many times we may end up with lots of unfinished and unfulfilled projects but I am happy and glad I had the chance to create what I did regarding this one and share with a lot of people who seemed to love it back then.

Fore those interested, here is some links to the original posts:
https://mlappas.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Forest-66007546
https://mlappas.deviantart.com/art/The-dark-forest-project-110908922

Thank you all for reading as well your support!

Manthos