Samudra Manthan to Kaal Bhairav

Most retellings of the Samudra Manthan stop at the Amrita. I wanted to follow the poison instead. When the Devas and Asuras churn the ocean with Mount Mandara on Kurma's back and Vasuki as the rope, the first thing that rises is the Halahala, and the only one who can take it is Shiva.

Bhairava is what Shiva's wrath becomes, and at Srikurmam, the one temple where Vishnu is worshipped as Kurma, it is Bhairava who stands guard at the gate. So the film moves from Vishnu resting on Shesha, through the churning, into the poison cloud, and comes out the other side in Bhairava's temple.

Every character started as a rough sculpt in Meshy AI from my own sketches and reference, then got cleaned up, resculpted, re-UV'd and shaded from scratch in Blender, where all the rigging and animation was done. The skies, a few environment plates and one shot are Seedance. Rendered in 4K with Eevee in Blender 5.0, graded in DaVinci Resolve.