MDCC Vol3 1st Place: Moon Face Animation crafting Steampunk Realities

Meet Moet, the visionary behind Moon Face Animation.

With two decades of experience spanning the entertainment and advertising industries in both Tokyo and Montpellier, Moet bridges the gap between traditional aesthetics and modern 3D technology.

Moet discusses her approach on her award-winning work in the Marvelous Designer Creator's Contest 2025 Vol.3 "FANTASY ARCHIVES", how she translated her interpretation of steampunk as a "unbalanced mixture of analog and technology" and "fragile dreamy hope" into stunning character designs.

Fly High!

Artist Introduction: please tell us about yourself.

Hello! I’m Moon Face Animation. Moon face animation is an one (wo)man, animation focused creative studio by Moet. It locates in Montpellier, France and Tokyo, Japan. I have been working in the entertainment & advertisement industry as a 2D&3D creator for about 20 years. I especially love working on concept/visual development and 3D character creation.
I was really happy to work on this contest because I love thinking about the background story and develop the fashion and the look for the character.

Please tell us more about the art direction for your winning entry in the Creator’s Contest 2025 Vol. 3. Specifically, what kind of visual style were you aiming for?

I did a lot of research for old clothes around Victorian era, and I chose ‘steampunk’ for the core theme. I spent lots time for figuring out what’s the core essence of steampunk. I didn’t want to fall in the typical ‘steampunk-look’ fashion. And my answer for the essence of steampunk was ‘the desire which makes impossible possible’. I wanted to use that core idea for my design.

To me, steampunk has certain kind of ‘unbalanced mixture of analog and technology’ and ‘Fragile dreamy hope’. So I wanted to visualize that feeling into the characters by collage images.

For the 3D model creation, I took some photos of some of my clothes and used them as texture for the 3D model. I didn’t know it would work or not, but in the end I really liked the look of it. It didn't look too neat and clean, and it brought hand made and analog feeling of steampunk I aimed for.

Please give us an overview of your asset production pipeline centered on Marvelous Designer. What tools do you use?
Also, tell us about any challenges you faced during production and how you overcame them.
I use Maya outside of Marvelous Designer.
For this project, I made props and base body in Maya. I set poses in Maya and exported as alembic for simulation in Marvelous Designer. The workflow was quite straight forward. This time I used photos for the texture, but I like making own patterns. I’m excited to explore more in the future.

If you have any tips or techniques regarding Marvelous Designer, please share them with the community.

I like sewing but I’m not a pattern maker. When I started learning Marvelous Designer, I bought several old dress patterns and scanned them and used them as a base pattern for practice. It was really fun exercise for me.