Leander Kirchner

Illustration | Animation | Concept Art

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"The Endling" was my 2D frame-by-frame animated bachelor film. It was completed within three months in 2024 and featured the characters of three thylacines, an extinct species.The Short revolves around three Tasmanian Tigers that live in a close-knit family group. Time skips from shot to shot as we witness the distant expansion of human settlements. This encroachment on our character’s habitat changes their home, shifts their social structures and finally leads to the disappearance and demise of the animals. Consequently, the animation style changes. An informative credit sequence underlines the narrative and message.The Endling is fully hand-animated and has a runtime of 3:16 minutes.
It is currently in its festival-review phase.

I was employed by the lovely and familial team of Zocklabs Inc. in Nuremberg over my internship period and then hired on as a part time 2D artist for the length of my contract.There I was responsible for oversight and quality assurance for the 2D Art-Interns and as well as taking on the more challenging illustrative and animation jobs. Character creation, sketch pose sheets, keyframing and deciding on colour sheets were my bread and butter - but some of my other works also included graphics of the in-game map, icons, environment creatures look and behaviour.The game is nearing completion and will arrive on the platform Steam in 2025! Link to the steam page.