Variations for the Nut Tree, seen by the Mouse at the very beginning of the film and later serving as the dramatic location for the Mouse’s first encounter with the Gruffalo. Drawings by Manu Arenas.

Some more artwork from the Mouse’s passage over the stream. Top: Shotlayout by Manu Arenas. Middle: Colourkey by Neil Ross. Bottom: Propdesigns and schematic drawings by Manu Arenas. See more from that sequence here.

A comparison between Max Lang’s fine work on the storyboards for the Snake Sequence and, below, the final product. More from that sequence here.

Above: Early compositional sketches for the Fox Sequence by Manu Arenas.  Below:  A schematic layout for one part of that sequence, also by Manu. (click on images to enlarge). See more from that sequence here and here.

Top three: Variations of the “bridge” on which Mouse first meets Owl, artwork by production designer Manu Arenas. Bottom: Colourkey of Manu’s final design by the great Neil Ross. More from that sequence here.

Above: Max Lang’s initial turnaround, which first gave the Gruffalo (drawn exclusively from a side view in the childrens’ book) a threedimensional treatment. Below: Early preliminary sketches and a modelsheet based on Max’s turn-around, both by Jakob Schuh. Maquette by Klaus Morschheuser. See “The Gruffalo” on Dec. 24th, 10.40 am on ZDF.

Some more preproduction from “Der Grüffelo”, which you can watch on ZDF this Christmas, December 24th at 10.40 am.

Different production stages from the film’s  “swamp sequence”, from top to bottom: Initial location design by Manu Arenas, set dress and prop design by Jakob Schuh, sculpt by Helena Ebel, location supervisor Klaus Morschheuser putting final touches on the set, lighting reference for CG by Louis Tardivier.

Manu Arenas’ wonderful, early b/w concepts (top and middle) inspired the “field of dandylions” sequence, which was later further visualized by the very talented Louis Tardivier (bottom).