London - one of the most well-known and visited cities in the world. It’s synonymous with history, weather, architecture and the urban fox.

So what better way to capture the spirit of London than with a short piece created and conceptualised by our UK-based team.

This self-initiated project, in which an urban fox provides a glimpse of London on a cold winter’s eve, started as a way for the team to explore new styles and have a bit of fun while doing it.

“We wanted to create something authentic that nods to our London roots,” UK Head of Production Laura Breaden said. 

”We thought it would be nice to spotlight London without the crowds, and its majestic cityscape through the eyes of a fox.”

Just as they would with a real client brief, the team went about this with lots of research. This included compiling lots of fox references (obviously!), images of the iconic London skyline and streets, and a mood board of the styles they wanted to explore. 

In the end, illustrative was the way to go. This enabled elements like texture to be added, creating a 2.5D environment that offered a little more depth than a strictly 2D piece. 

The team then pieced it together with atmosphere and glow to add a dash of magic. And because they had the luxury of time, it was animated frame-by-frame.

“The fact that we don’t produce frame-by-frame animation all the time sort of drew us to it,” Laura said.

Another drawcard was Steph Haymes, one of our UK animators who loves hand-drawn animation (and foxes) … which was handy! The final piece came from the in-house sound team, who added the ambient sound.