My inspiration for The Eternal Duel comes from a long standing fascination with both samurai and knights. I was always drawn
to samurai culture, their discipline, precision and philosophy while at the same time I spent much of my childhood drawing
fantasy and realistic knights and medieval armour. Both figures became recurring subjects in my sketchbooks long before this
project began.

This project felt like a natural way to bring those together. I also made a conscious decision to focus more on character animation
rather than environments. In my third year short film “Tranquillity” I unintentionally created a film that was heavily background
focused which pushed me to shift my approach for this project. By keeping the environments minimal, I was able to put more
attention into character movement, contrast in fighting styles and performance.
Placing a knight and a samurai face to face allowed me to explore not only their visual differences, but also the shared values of
honour and respect that connects them. The contrast between the knight’s slow, powerful presence and the samurai’s speed and
precision became a core inspiration behind the duel.

The knight will be a character who delivers any blow with devastating and heavy impacts and brutal strength, but his weakness is
slowness. This slowness doesn’t make him any less dangerous.

The samurai will be a character that is quick, light and precise, without armour. He is someone who depends on speed in contrast
to the knight, his complete opposite. His design will be soft, ominous and round. His clothing will be similar to a ronin. Any blow
could be fatal.