The Mystery Core (Storyboards)

This project is an interactive that allows the player to solve a scientific mystery. I was heavily inspired by 1920s cartoons such as Betty Boop and Popeye, so I studied rubber hose animation in order to replicate the art style for my work. This project was also made using Adobe illustrator. 

Overview

You have a sample collected—called 1037A— from

sediments 2 miles below the ocean’s surface, 200 miles off the coast of California.

The sample is called a core—a long tube of material collected while drilling beneath the sea floor. When

researchers got this core sample up to the ship, they noticed right away, a darker layer, very different from the

surrounding, finer, lighter-colored layers that are typical of deep ocean sediments.

It turned out that the darker layers contained many mineral grains and larger rocks, long with the remains of

land plants, specifically bit of leaves, wood and pinecones. Clearly, this material had come from land. Scientists were amazed to find such well-preserved land material in sediments from land, beneath such deep ocean.

But where on land did this material come from? Like forensic experts working a crime scene, we can look for.

clues to piece together an understanding of this core sample.

1920s cartoons tend to utilize multiple fonts of varying sizes for their title cards. They also tend to have simplistic designs that showcase the main character of the episode. I added grain, black lines down the middle, hair, and a vignette in order to make the title card look like it was being displayed on an old television.