As I have been producing some concepts and I am at the stage of designing the look of my animation I've been thinking about my visual-style. In the time-frame given it will be too muchof a stretch to aim for Photo-realistic images so I need an alternative. The animation, as it is focused around plant live and nature is obviously going to contain a lot of bright and vivid colours, which is why the style I am going to follow will be aimed at using the vibrance of these colours to show the life cycle. The animation will have a slight cartoon-look to it, mainly because of the range of colours I am going to use, which will 'push' the originals a little further.

The concept art I have posted shows my intentions, the research shows slightly duller colours, but I want to bring out a bit more of a fairy-tale quality whilst keeping it scenic. To do this, quite a lot of thought will need to go into the textures and shaders to highlight the plants.  Hopefully, this will add a more artistic direction to a scientific display.

I'm also playing around to add a 'glow' like aesthetic to certain parts, almost making certain acts look like 'magic', I'll post up some videos or images soon in the post after looking for similar examples.