Floraspira: Sarracenia

3D Animated Short Film

Runtime: 16min10s

2026

Floraspira: Ash is a natural-fantasy animated short about two lovers living at the foot of a volcano, navigating their own obsessions and fears to find their way back to each other. It is the fourth episode in Floraspira, an ongoing personal series exploring the relationship between natural forces and human emotion.

The film pursues a "de-CG" aesthetic, using deliberate material design to emulate the handcrafted texture of live-action and stop-motion filmmaking. The goal is a world that feels not just seen but tangible, where the roughness of surfaces becomes an intuitive gateway into the characters' inner emotional states.

Floraspira: Ash was realized primarily as a one-person animated film by director Zeming Sun, who guided the project from concept to final image across writing, art direction, animation, visual development, compositing, and original music. Additional character and asset work was contributed by Haoyue Xu, with sound design and final mix by Joey Zuye Liu. The film was produced as Zeming Sun’s thesis project in the Expanded Animation program at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

- Character Design-Ina -

All aspects by me (Design, Drawing, Modeling, Animation,etc)，except annotations

In designing the characters, I aimed to make them feel both beautiful and fragile, with a strong handcrafted quality. I explored stylized techniques like manually painting object space normals for a woodcut look, and using organic textures—leaves, wood, moss—instead of realistic skin or fur. The green foxes are also designed with a wooden texture.

I'm constantly searching for a balance between style, realism, and materiality—not stylization for its own sake, but a way to evoke deep, honest emotions through humble, tactile forms.