Neverwhere Project

This is an art direction and animatic project based on a scene from Neverwhere, the 1996 novel by Neil Gaiman.

The scene starts with Richard Mayhew, the novel’s protagonist, following a guide into an abandoned tube station to help him find a girl named Door. It’s here that he finds the Rat Speakers.

Animatic

The audio was taken from the 2013 radio play broadcast on BBC Radio 4, featuring James McAvoy as Richard Mayhew, Johnny Vegas as Lord Ratspeaker and Yasmin Paige as Anaesthesia.

I was interested by the shifts in power dynamics that take place in this scene and the very swift changes from comedy to drama.

The scene I chose features 5 characters and I have been creating character documents for 3 of them. I started with simple exploratory sketches and watercolour to get a good grasp of what I wanted from their designs. Scroll through to view all the designs.