Brett Foxwell’s ‘LeafPresser’ Is A Stunning Example Of Replacement Animation That Shows Off The Beauty And Diversity Of The Natural World

Brett Foxwell’s two-minute short LeafPresser is a wonderful example of replacement animation that showcases an incredible diversity of leaf shapes, textures, and colors that can be found in nature.

LeafPresser was inspired by another of Foxwell’s projects, the short film WoodSwimmer. Using strata-cut animation, that short explored the inner structure of wood and branches. After finishing the project, the director was inspired to create a trilogy of shorts using natural materials, each made using a different animation technique.

Speaking with Cartoon Brew, Foxwell explained the inspiration for his leaf-themed entry in the trilogy:

I was soon drawn to the beauty and variety of Japanese maple leaves turning from green to deep red and orange as autumn came and realized a replacement animation sequence could be assembled from these leaves. I began to collect, press, and photograph hundreds, and then thousands, of leaves.

In the end, Foxwell photographed more than 12,000 leaves. If the right size or shape of leaf wasn’t immediately available, he would go hunting for something to fit the bill in an exercise he described as an “extremely tedious endeavor, but my other work in stop-motion animation had prepared me for this, and it became a sort of obsession.”

The finished short is smooth and flowing in a way that could easily be confused with cg animation. According to Foxwell:

The sequences were meticulously assembled in After Effects and many tiny adjustments were made to smooth them out. Every leaf had been photographed front-lit and back-lit. This allowed the final assembly to have a sort of spotlight to show the internal vascular structure.

A further breakdown of the techniques used in the short can be seen in a behind-the-scenes video, linked below.