Bonelli Animated Brand Logo

Client: Bonelli Entertainment

Agency Partner: Sincromie

Project: Crafting the flagship animated logo to serve as the brand identity for all film and television productions.

My Role: Lead 3D Artist (Environments & Props) & Technical Look Development

As the lead 3D artist for all non-character elements, I was tasked with one of the project’s core challenges: translating the iconic, black-and-white aesthetic of Bonelli’s comics into immersive, three-dimensional worlds.

Working in a tight, collaborative partnership with Sincromie, who provided the initial concept and animatic, my role was a hybrid of artistic execution and technical innovation. My key responsibilities included:

• 3D Environment & Prop Creation: Concepting all environments and props, from the vast desert landscapes to the intricate details of the Mayan ruins and the futuristic city. I modeled and sculpted some of them, like the futuristic city buildings and vehicles. I textured all the hundreds of assets.
• Technical Look Development: Designing and implementing the unique “living comic” visual style. This involved texture projection with Blender and 3D-Coat in sync with Clip Studio Paint, to replicate the feel of traditional ink, hatching, and paper texture in a 3D space.
• Hybrid Workflow Strategy: Collaborating with the agency to strategically decide which assets would be most effective as 3D models versus 2D animated elements, ensuring a seamless and visually cohesive final product.
• Concept-to-Final Execution: Taking the 2D animatic and transforming it into fully realized 3D scenes that matched the creative vision for pacing, scale, and atmosphere.

The Challenge: Forging a 2D Soul into a 3D World

Bonelli’s legacy is built on nearly a century of masterful 2D comic art. The challenge was not simply to create a 3D animation, but to make the viewer feel like they were stepping inside a living, breathing comic book. This meant avoiding a clean, sterile “3D look” and instead capturing the grit, texture, and expressive power of ink on paper.

The core technical and artistic problems were:

1. Authentic 2D Aesthetic: How to develop a 3D rendering style that emulates cross-hatching, ink washes, and atmospheric perspective without looking like a simple post-processing filter?
2. Seamless Integration: How to merge full 3D environments with 2D animated characters (like the horse) and elements so that the final result felt like a single, unified art piece?
3. Narrative Scale: How to build worlds—from a western desert to a fantasy castle to a sci-fi city—that felt vast and epic within the short timeframe of a logo animation, all while maintaining the same core visual identity?

The Solution: A Custom Shader Pipeline and a Collaborative Spirit

My solution was to treat every 3D asset not as a realistic object, but as a canvas to be “drawn” by the renderer. This was achieved through a multi-layered, technical approach.

1. Modeling for a Stylized Look: All assets were modeled in Blender, 3D-Coat or ZBrush with a focus on strong, readable silhouettes. The geometry was intentionally built not just for form, but to provide a base that would react predictably and artistically to the custom NPR shaders.
2. Texturing through projection mapping: The 3D assets were projected as 2D images in the 2D painting application (Clip Studio Paint), where I had all the tools and brushes that I use daily for comic book art. The 2D images were then projected back onto the 3D asset in 3D-Coat or Blender (according to the asset).
3. Iterative Development with Sincromie: The process was highly collaborative. Starting with the 2D animatic, each shot was blocked out in 3D. We then held joint sessions to review the shots and decide which elements would remain 3D and which would be more effective as 2D animation, ensuring the strengths of both mediums were used to their fullest. This hybrid approach was key to achieving the final, dynamic look.

Visual Assets & Technical Breakdowns

1. The Final Animated Logo

2. Thumbnailing: Measuring space

The first phase was thumbnailing: it was essential to measure the size and depth of each environment, and how to manage the transition between them.

I used Blender Grease Pencil to create 3D sketches and move them in space in real size, until I defined all the distances and sizes for the assets.

Distances from the camera were a key issue, because we wanted to keep line weigth consistent, as in a traditional drawing. So elements further away neeeded thicker lines in comparison to closer assets, because they would appear reduced in size with the distance.

3. Lighting: Managing contrasts

Contrast between blacks and whites is what defines Bonelli’s comic art. I studied the best approach to lighting starting with 2D lighting keys, iterating through several variations.

I then created 3D blockouts to study how light interacted with a simplified version of the entire scene.

I created rough animations corresponding to the planned camera movement, to check the readability when everything is in motion.

VR was very useful in this phase, for its spèed in 3D sketching.

2. Environment & Prop creation

The main challenge was readability, because the camera had a fast pace motion and we had only three values: black, white, and gray (actually: hatching and paper texture).

Each asset needed a thorough 2D concepting, from shape to shading, before the creation of a 3D mesh.

I took care myselt of the modeling of some assets, while others were sculpted and retopologized by Sincromie’s team.

Every asset was then painted by me, with the projection technique. There was no 3D shading, all the lighting was painted onto the assets. Each asset could have several textures, for different distances from the camera and lightings.

There were also several 2D assets for the distant objects, that were treated as 2D planes.

Project Outcome: The Moving Soul of a Publishing Giant

The result is a powerful, dynamic animated logo that successfully captures the spirit of Bonelli’s vast universe. It serves as the official opening for all Bonelli Entertainment productions, including the major motion picture “Dampyr” and the international TV series “Dragonero”.

My contribution was pivotal in defining the visual and technical framework that allowed a 90-year legacy of 2D art to find its new, moving identity in the world of film and animation.