STUDIO GATTAI

If they mated: One Piece edition

2012-01-24T01:16:00.000-08:00

Ossu! Hello friends. I hope that the New Year is treating you well so far. Over the weekend, Zer07 and I played another round of one of our favorite drawing games, "If they mated." This time around, we were inspired by the anime series, "One Piece," so all the challenges involved drawing famous characters in the style of "One Piece." Take a look at the offspring we created:

First Challenge - Draw Batman in the style of One Piece:

Zer07's Bat Piece:

Shiro Ninja's Bat Piece:

Next, take characters from Disney's Aladdin in the style of One Piece:

Zer07's One Piece Genie:

Shiro Ninja's One Piece style Aladdin + Jasmine:

Lastly, Zer07 and Shiro Ninja self portraits in the style of One Piece:

Until next time.... Ninja smoke bomb!!!

L5: The saga begins

2012-01-14T22:30:00.000-08:00

011010010110111000100000011100110111000001100001011000110110010100101100001000000110111001101111001000000110111101101110011001010010000001100011011000010110111000100000011010000110010101100001011100100010000001111001011011110111010100100000011100110110001101110010011001010110000101101101001011100010111000101110

Beep boop, greetings fellow robots! unitzer07 here with a big update. I've been spending a lot of processing cycles working for a dear friend on a web series pilot called "L5". I'm happy to say that the project is nearing the finish line and will premiere Feb 21st. Check out the official trailer:

Anime Corner: Summer Wars

2011-12-28T05:52:00.000-08:00

Hello friends! I hope you are all enjoying the holidays. Over the Christmas weekend, I re-watched an excellent movie called "Summer Wars," and I enjoyed it so much (even the second time around) that I had to recommend it here on the blog.

"Summer Wars" has it all: action, romance, great characters, and a heart-warming story. The story follows a timid high school boy named Kenji, who agrees to help his popular school mate, Natsuki, by accompanying her to meet her relatives in the country. Kenji awkwardly tries to fit in to the huge family as he tries to keep all the relatives' names straight while dealing with their scrutiny. Meanwhile, a terrorist has taken over the internet and is wreaking havoc on the real world. When people's lives become in danger, Kenji decides to take matters into his own hands and face off against the cyber terrorist in an action-packed, suspenseful battle.

As I said, there is so much to like about this movie, but what I love most are the characters. Natsuki's family feels so real, with unique personalities and comically relatable interactions. The women tend to run the show in this family too, which makes for an especially interesting dynamic. You can really relate to Kenji, who is a meek math nerd feeling out of place in this family descended from warriors. Ultimately, Kenji must prove himself a worthy warrior in an epic battle to save the world!!

This movie is a must-see. Even the second time around, it made this ninja cry... sniff. If you haven't already, check it out!! Here's a trailer:

Also, for Christmas, I got Zer07 some books relating to "Summer Wars." Zer07 loves art books, so I got him the "Summer Wars" complete storyboards and a design book with all the final character and background designs. The art is really beautiful in these books!

Summer Wars design book:

Summer Wars storyboards book:

Have a happy and safe New Year everyone! Nin nin!

Figure Drawing: Red Sonja

2011-12-16T01:06:00.000-08:00

Hello friends! Yesterday we went to another figure drawing session. The model dressed up as the fearsome warrior, Red Sonja. This session, we focused on shorter timed poses, so the drawings are more gestural.

1 minute drawings by Zer07:

1 minute drawings by Shiro Ninja:

3 minute drawings by Shiro Ninja:

Saraba!!

If they mated: Bender x Gundam

2011-12-10T02:03:00.000-08:00

By my brother's request, Bender from "Futurama" in the style of "Gundam":

Here's what I came up with:

-Shiro Ninja-

Figure Drawing

2011-11-23T19:20:00.000-08:00

Hello friends! Shiro Ninja here. I thought I'd share some figure drawing sketches that Zer07 and I did last week. We're a little out of practice, but now that we're planning on going to figure drawing more regularly, hopefully we'll see some improvement over the coming months.

Drawings by Zer07:

Drawings by Shiro Ninja:

Happy Thanksgiving!! Nin nin.

Anime Corner: Nichijou (My Ordinary Life)

2011-11-06T01:18:00.000-07:00

Selamat Pagi! (^_^)\

Shiro Ninja here. I'd like to start an anime recommendation corner here on the Studio Gattai blog. Today's feature is the gag comedy series, "Nichijou" (English title: My Ordinary Life). Nichijou literally means, "every day usual," so as the title suggests, this is a slice of life anime. The situations are relatable every day occurrences, but taken to epic proportions with over the top reactions and insane animation. Here's a taste: (Unfortunately, there isn't a subtitled version of this clip on youtube, but the setup is this: the brown haired girl explains the joy of saving the most delicious part of her lunch for last.)

(If you couldn't guess, the brown haired girl invoked the 3 second rule and claims the weiner is still "safe.") Each episode is broken up into several short, stand-alone chapters, allowing for a variety of bizarre and hilarious scenarios. The only drawback for this show is that some of the jokes are very specific to Japanese culture. Still, I have to recommend it for the super ultra great wonderful delicious animation! All 26 episodes of "Nichijou" are streaming in Japanese with English subtitles on Crunchyroll (as "My Ordinary Life").
Check it out:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/my-ordinary-life

thunder...Thunder....THUNDER!!!!

2011-08-04T23:26:00.001-07:00

0101010001101000011101010110111001100100011001010111001000100000011000110110000101110100011100110010000001100001011100100110010100100000011011110110111000100000011101000110100001100101001000000110110101101111011101100110010100101100001000000101010001101000011101010110111001100100011001010111001000100000011000110110000101110100011100110010000001100001011100100110010100100000011011000110111101101111011100110110010100101110

Beep boop. Hello fellow humanoid entities. Unitzer07 here to report on a brand new take on a classic cartoon from the times when I was still just an accounting program at ENCOM. That's right, your favorite ThunderCats have all been revived with a fresh spin on a great idea. There are some key differences to the look and story so let's dive in and explore!

The show starts out with our hero Lion-O as a young cat trying desperately to step out of his brother's shadow and become his own man. The main conflict seems to revolve around Lion-O coming of age and proving himself to those around him. Eventually (we assume) taking on the role of lord of the ThunderCats.

Now, if you're wondering, "Is this just a re-make?" I have to say definitely not. There are a few pretty big differences in the story that make this version of ThunderCats a more well rounded re-telling. The biggest difference is that the cats start on Third Earth. In the original show the ThunderCats flee, "Superman style" from their home planet "Thundera" just before it self destructs. Another key difference is that Tygra is now Lion-O's adopted older brother. He's literally taken on the role of the son that the king never had. Lion-O can never seem to live up to his father's expectations. King Claudis even goes so far as to say, "Why can't your brother be more like you Tygra?". This sets up an interesting relationship for the two of them. They are closer in age and always in competition. This is emphasized even more when Cheetara shows up.

(That's right Lion-O, you're my bitch)

Originally Tygra, Cheetara, Panthro, Wily Kit/Kat and Snarf all functioned as mentors for Lion-O. He was a boy stuck in a man's body and it was their job to raise him. This time around Cheetara is the only known member of the elite group of king's guards.(known as Jaga's clerics)

Also, Snarf does not talk, which I find I do not miss. Wily Kit and Kat take on this very Aladdin street rat role and they do not meet up with the cat crew in the first two episodes.

(gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat...)

Panthro doesn't make an appearance in the first few episodes but it can be assumed that when he does, he will be the supreme badass of the group. Everyone always knew Panthro was the man and I'm glad it seems as though he'll be resuming that role. Now, for my biggest complaint, Mumm-Ra. I like the look, but the voice...originally his voice was menacing and deep. They've since replahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifced it with a light hissy voice that sounds like Cobra Commander when he was turned into a snake. As he makes his famous call, "ancient spirits of evil" it definitely does not have the same impact as the original clip in my opinion.

The animation was produced by one of my favorite animation companies in Japan, Studio 4C, which has been responsible for some amazing productions such as segments of the Animatrix, Batman Gotham Knights, and Halo Legends. Partnered with Warner Bros, I'm hopeful that this show will remain at the high production value the first two episodes teased. Overall I'm very happy with the new show. The storytelling has been unified and brought to another level. The character animation is above what you would expect on television and the style has just the right blend of Japanese and Western influences. Let's hope that ThunderCats is a success and we can see more in the future!

(Lynx-O!!)

end of line...

-07-

The Ninja Diet

2011-07-06T19:27:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Shiro Ninja here. I hope you had a safe and enjoyable Fourth of July weekend! I enjoyed myself by eating whatever I wanted! This is kind of a big deal because for the past month or so, I have been trying to follow a special kind of diet.

They say that one in ten ninjas suffers from eczema, and I happen to fall into that unfortunate one in ten category. People have been telling me to avoid all foods that might cause allergic reactions, so that's what I've been trying to do... but it's pretty hard to stay on the wagon when you can't eat anything!
This is not only hard, but a lot of work! I've been making lots of trips to Whole Foods and stocking up on a ridiculous amount of fruits and vegetables. Here's a typical day:

Someone please give me a meatball sub.

Booting Up...

2011-06-17T00:25:00.000-07:00

01110101011011100110100101110100001000000111001101111001011100110111010001100101011011010010000001110011011101000110000101110010011101000000110100001010011101010110111001101001011101000010000001100100011001010111001101101001011001110110111001100001011101000110100101101111011011100010000000111010001000000011000000110111000011010000101001100010011011110110111101110100011010010110111001100111001000000110111101110011001011100010111000101110

A quick update from animation on the upcoming series L5. Here I animated the ship's intelligent computer booting up and performing maintenance tasks. All the pretty floating screens were added after I was finished with the animation.

L5 - Clarke from Stanley Von Medvey on Vimeo.

-07-

Happy little clouds

2011-06-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

Gobusata shimashita! Hello again friends! I've been away for a little while on some ninja business, but I'm back and ready to paint. I've noticed a lot of beginner Photoshop tutorials out there dealing with painting clouds. What is this obsession with clouds? I don't know, but the painting masters are telling me that this is what I need to paint, so that's what I'm doing:

Hmm. It's still looking a little cartoony to me, but for the most part I'm happy with how it turned out. Here is a link to the helpful tutorial I followed for this painting:

http://www.androidblues.com/cloudtut.html

Happy Thursday everyone. Saraba!!

-Shiro Ninja-

200 years later and still...

2011-05-08T18:25:00.000-07:00

010000010110011001110100011001010111001000100000011001110110111101101001011011100110011100100000011001000110111101110111011011100010000001100110011011110111001000100000011011010110000101101001011011100111010001100101011011100110000101101110011000110110010100100000010010010010000001101000011000010111011001100101001000000110011001101001011011100110000101101100011011000111100100100000011000100110010101100101011011100010000001110010011001010111011001101001011101100110010101100100

Greetings fellow robots!

UnitZer07 here with a long overdue update.

Many things have been going on in the past few months, so let's start with the big news. This year I have existed for a complete thirty cycles!! I am very excited to be self aware for so long and look forward to the future ahead. We have been very busy on our various projects and I come to you with an update on the super awesome Sci-fi adventure "L5".

Today we're going to take a look at a shot I animated of our astronauts emerging onto a giant freight elevator at the center of a vast space colony. I'm really excited to see this piece finished and I hope you enjoy the short taste of what's coming up from Studio Hemogoblin and Studio Gattai!

Elevator Collapse : 001_009_Final from zero seven on Vimeo.

If you're interested in learning more about L5 please visit the production blog at :

http://l5production.blogspot.com/

Look forward to some exciting news coming soon from Studio Gattai!

beep boop,

-07-

Homework Assignment #1 complete!

2011-02-03T14:52:00.000-08:00

Shiro Ninja here! I finally finished my "Full Metal Alchemist-Brotherhood" background painting. This final portion with the water and fountain is not exactly how I wanted it, but I'm going to call this assignment done. (Hey, I'm still learning and it's not going to be perfect right off the bat!) There's still a lot to learn about painting and using Photoshop. One tool that I discovered and now want to use all the time is called, "Gaussian Blur." That's what gives the water that soft, sexy glow. Now I just want to give everything that Martha Stewart glow!

Thank you Don for offering great painting advice and expertise! More assignments to come soon.

Saraba!!

Lost in Space...

2011-01-30T23:59:00.000-08:00

Beep Boop

Greetings fellow robots! Unit Zer07 Here with an update on some very exciting activity. I've been given permission to show you all the work I've been doing on an up and coming internet series called "L5". "L5" is a 'hard science fiction' show about a crew of astronauts whose failed mission to find a livable home for humans is met with mystery when they return to earth to discover that they are 200 years late and all traces of humanity are gone. This post will introduce you to the process I went through to develop a digital double of a real actor for the film.

Being that the creator of L5 is a close friend of mine, I was charged with creating the digital doubles for two astronauts that will appear in the show's pilot episode. The point of a digital double is to do things that you normally can't easily do while filming in live action. For example, space exterior shots would be fairly impossible to film considering we definitely don't have the budget to send our actors and film crews up into space. So we create a digital double and film them in the computer instead.

It all started with the design for the characters space suit: (designed by Stanley Von Medvey)

From there the casting process begins. When we finally have actors cast to play their respective roles pictures are taken for reference.

These pictures usually include front, side and three quarter views. Usually the characters are also photographed displaying a wide variety of emotions and facial attitudes so that the artist can better replicate the actor.

At this point in the process I put all my effort into making the model look as much like the actor as possible. This is where that reference mentioned above really came in handy:

In this image you can see that most of the features are there. However there is just something off about the face. This is because right now the head is completely symmetrical.

After introducing some asymmetry to more closely match the actors form, we're ready to bring this model into a program called Zbrush. Simply put Zbrush allows an artist to add really fine detail like skin wrinkles:

It was around this time that I received the reference for the completed space suit. Once again I was given a model sheet with detailed photos of every possible area on the suit. This was a tremendous help in creating the space suit model:

From here I now have everything I need to finish this model. I started by blocking in really rough shapes and forms to get the character's silhouette working properly:

From here, I work on specific areas of detail.

Once the model is completed, it is ready for texture maps.

Texture maps are basically images painted on the surface of a model.

Now that this character has been modeled, it's time to build a rig and animate the character. The end result will hopefully be a seamless blend between cg and real life. If you are interested in "L5" please check out their production blog here:

L5 production blog

Don't forget to check out the teaser trailer linked below and for anyone interested in the construction process of the physical space suit just head over to The monsters musings for developer diaries and work in progress images of the space suit construction and general production of the short film.

L5 Teaser Trailer - HQ from Stanley Von Medvey on Vimeo.

end of line...

-07-

Flip book time!!

2011-01-25T00:41:00.000-08:00

Shiro Ninja sanjou! It's time to flip some pages! Below is a shot I just finished animating in which the boy is doing a spinning back kick!! (Please disregard the scribbles on the sides... This is still a rough pass, and I try to reuse paper as much as possible for our tree friends...) Animating the traditional way means constantly flipping pages to see if the motion is working. This scene will be a lot faster when it's edited in real time, but at least we get an idea of whether or not the action is working.

Spinning back kick!! from Shiro Ninja on Vimeo.

Until next time...
Nin nin!!

The joy of painting happy little trees

2011-01-10T00:32:00.000-08:00

Ossu! Shiro Ninja desu! (^o^)/

Lately I've been trying to learn how to paint backgrounds in Photoshop. I was kind of intimidated at first because, a) I've never painted that much before (what can I say... I'm an animator... I like drawing people!) and, b) computers freak me out! But I figured if we're going to make animations with a skeleton crew, then I'd better start figuring out how to paint trees and clouds and stuff.

When I tried to paint things from my own imagination, the colors didn't seem to work, and the paintings just looked weird. I decided to try something out. My homework assignment to myself is to take a bunch of screen captures from anime and try my best to replicate the backgrounds. So here's homework assignment #1: a scene from "Full Metal Alchemist-Brotherhood."

This is the original shot:

I started by painting the sky:

Next, I painted the trees:

Then, I added the hedges.

The base of the fountain came next:

I'm about to start on the final step, which is the water. I'll post the final painting when it's done. It's been an interesting and surprisingly fun process trying to get familiar with painting and with Photoshop. I discovered that there are a bunch of different types of brushes you can use in the program, and all are customizable... for me, it's still a matter of figuring out the right kind of brush to achieve the look I'm going for.

There are lots of Photoshop tutorials for painting, but I find that a lot of them assume that you've already mastered Photoshop and its millions of tools. So for a total beginner like me, these online tutorials were really helpful:

http://www.melissaevans.com/tutorials

And of course, I watched some good old Bob Ross videos! Because "there are no such things as mistakes... just happy accidents."

Nin, nin!

-Shiro Ninja-

Totsugeki!!

2011-01-09T20:43:00.000-08:00

Greetings fellow internauts! Unitzer07 here with a long overdue update. With the holiday season now past and my robo-virus finally under control, I can make a post with some work updates on our computer animated short film "Cowboys and Dinosaurs". This is a shot where a dinosaur is charging at a fence trying to break through. Right now there are still no textures(skin) and no lighting(shadows) in the scene, so this does not represent the final look. See for yourself and let us know what you think!

Cowboys and Dinosaurs shot 38 animation from zero seven on Vimeo.

Thanksgiving travels

2010-11-21T23:50:00.000-08:00

It's almost Thanksgiving! That, of course, means it's time to go visit the old ninja village. But how?? Here are my options: go to the airport and either get molested or have a pervy photo taken.... or sit in a bus for 23 hours.... I've opted for the bus. I'll let you know how many hours it takes before I go mentally insane. Safe travels everyone, and remember, if you opt for the intimate "pat down," get a room! It's your right ;)

Saraba!!

-Shiro Ninja-

WATCH OUT!!!

2010-11-15T15:43:00.000-08:00

Shiro Ninja here! Things have been a little slow on the blog lately, but I can assure you that a lot of work has been going into our CG and 2D projects. "Cowboys and Dinosaurs" is finally entering its animation phase. I thought I'd share a frame from the storyboards so you could get an idea of the world and the kind of action to expect. Here is a rough colored thumbnail sketch of our two heroes in an aerial assault:

We're still working out color schemes and other designs elements, so expect more concept art in the days to come!

Nin, nin!

Over another hurdle

2010-10-21T00:27:00.000-07:00

01100111011100100110010101100101011101000110100101101110011001110111001100100000011001100110010101101100011011000110111101110111001000000111001101100101011011100111010001101001011001010110111001110100001000000110001001100101011010010110111001100111011100110010000100100001

greetings fellow sentient beings!!

Unit 07 here with an update on what's been going on at Studio Gattai. Keyframe Samurai and I have been refining the human and dinosaur rigs. The characters are pretty much ready to start animating. We'll have some more updates with hair and hat variations in the coming weeks. According to Keyframe Samurai, the dinosaurs just need a bit more tweaking. Once that's done we can start work on our trailer. The tentative release date for a teaser trailer is March 7, 2011. I hope you all look forward to it!! Until then, here are some images of characters in color looking very angry...or constipated....

end of line...

-07-

When Dinosaurs Roamed the Interwebs

2010-10-08T23:29:00.001-07:00

Keyframe Samurai here. I haven't posted anything in a little while. But I'm basically finished rigging all the dinosaurs. I just have a few little touch ups to do on everyone, but I just couldn't resist posting them now anyways. Enjoy. I'll be posting some test animations with all the characters soon once I iron out the last few bugs in the characters rigs.

If they mated...

2010-09-28T23:22:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while we like to play drawing games. One of these games is a lot like Conan O'Brien's "If they mated" concept. In our game, we take a character and try and draw them in a totally different cartoon style. For example, what would Superman look like in the style of SpongeBob?? Here are some of the offspring that we've created recently:

Take Garfield... in the style of Hellboy...

...and you get:

Let's try another one!

Take Wonderwoman... in the style of the anime series Gurren Lagann...

.....and you get:

(Nice detail with the camel toe Zer07.)

How about Ronald McDonald in the style of comicbook artist Joe Madureira....

To be continued......

More messy drawings

2010-08-25T15:36:00.000-07:00

Shiro Ninja sanjou! Hello friends. I'd like to share some more rough animation fighting scenes with you. This is a continuation of the last rough animation clip I posted. (Please pardon the extreme messiness of the drawings!!)

The Last Cookie - Fight Scene2 (Rough Animation) from Shiro Ninja on Vimeo.

By the way, the previous scene that I posted ended up being over 60 drawings for a mere 4.5 seconds of action! So, for my brother, who asks, "Why does animation take so long???" .....That is why.

Drawing the "cleaned up" version of that scene on paper presented an unexpected challenge: their huge heads and tiny arms made it really hard to punch at each other without their noggins colliding! It all worked out in the end though!

Until next time. Nin, nin!

-Shiro Ninja-

The mystery of L5

2010-08-16T22:54:00.000-07:00

Your journey has taken you longer than it should have. When you return to Earth, the only thing waiting for you are the remains of our once prominent and advanced civilization.

What happened?

This is the premise of a new series called L5 being pitched right now by our good friend Stanley Von Medvey. The series follows a band of astronauts who have journeyed to a far off star system and return home later than anticipated. They discover massive empty colonies in space orbiting the planet earth and set off to discover just exactly what happened to humanity.

The project is being funded by a grass roots website called Kickstarter, where you the viewer have the opportunity to be a part of funding the project that you believe in. It is an opportunity to put the creativity back into the hands of the creator and contribute to art as it happens. Please check out the link below and donate!

you can find the info and website below:

SIGGRAPH 2010

2010-08-09T14:52:00.000-07:00

Gobusata shimashita!! Shiro Ninja here. My apologies for the long absence! Zer07 and I were on a top secret mission in Los Angeles. Our mission: to infiltrate SIGGRAPH and distribute as many of our demo reels as possible!

For those of you who don't know, SIGGRAPH is an annual conference held for the Computer Graphics industry. There are exhibits on emerging technologies, new software, and most excitingly, a job fair. All the big animation studios set up booths and it's a great opportunity to network! So Zer07 and I went with 200 demo reels and this is what happened:

Nobody seemed very enthusiastic about taking our demo reels or applications... so then we went to the designated "Job Fair" section thinking that everyone there was recruiting...

Before the end of the day, we each had luck with one studio.

Needless to say, our mission was a supreme failure.

We did, however, have fun with some good friends and see some beautiful sights! It was a looooong journey back to Canada. Maybe next time we'll fly!

-Shiro Ninja-

Rough Animation

2010-07-14T00:50:00.000-07:00

Today I thought I'd show you what happened to those thumbnail sketches from my previous post. Every Last Cookie clip you've seen so far has been drawn and colored on paper. I give all of those drawings to Zero7 to scan and edit in the computer. For most animators, there's a little trial and error involved in the animation process. To check if the animation is working properly, you do numerous "pencil tests," which are basically video footage of test animation. Because I don't want to waste too much of Zero7's time, I do all of my preliminary animation in Flash first. As you'll see below, it's VERY rough... but it doesn't need to look pretty. At this stage, all I care about is how the action looks. Flash allows me to quickly draw, adjust timing, and playback the animation all at the click of a button. Once I'm happy with the action, I start working on paper, using the Flash animation test as a guide, but this time trying to make each frame look pretty.

The Last Cookie - fight scene (Rough Animation) from Shiro Ninja on Vimeo.

Keep an eye out for some final images of this scene!
Saraba!

-Shiro Ninja-

Inspiration Candy!

2010-07-10T23:34:00.000-07:00

01100101001...

ohayou gozaimasu...

greetings fellow interneters,

today we're going to highlight some inspirational animation for all you fans to salivate over. I personally have been waiting for this film to come out since I heard about it back in 2006. Since then this film has been like a ghost wandering the vast expanse of the internet, showing its face from time to time in scattered bits of news and constantly pushed back premiere dates. I'm talking of course about Takeshi Koike's Directorial debut "Redline".

For those of you who don't know Koike by name, perhaps you might recognize the Animatrix. Koike directed the short "World Record" about a record breaking run that turned into enlightenment for one denizen of the matrix. It was a brilliantly animated and directed piece, so fans have been greatly anticipating his first feature film. Not much is known about the plot of Redline at this time, but this is what I know.

Redline is an intergalactic race of epic proportions. The story follows main character JP as he chases love and victory on the ultimate track. Will he achieve his goals? Will he surpass the Red line? Still don't think you have any reason to check it out? Here's five...

Trailer 1:

Trailer 2:

Trailer 3:

Trailer 4:

Trailer 5:

until next time...

-zer07-

Yattaaa!! \(^o^)/

2010-07-06T12:30:00.000-07:00

Shiro Ninja here... just finished a scene that really kicked my butt (-_-;)

When we last left our two cookie monsters, they were staring each other down and ready to strike! If you can't tell already, "The Last Cookie" is about to get intense. The truth is, I've been dreading this next sequence for months. These action sequences need to be really awesome... otherwise I will have to commit seppuku! (>o<) I was watching LOTS of anime fighting clips, wushu choreography, and some just plain gross violence, trying to get some sort of inspiration, but I just couldn't figure out this next sequence. Then, I went back to one of the original inspirations for Last Cookie: "Ranma 1/2."

"The Last Cookie" originally came about ten years ago when I was obsessed with Ranma and also watching way too much "Dragonball Z" on Toonami. Needless to say, after watching several episodes of Ranma, I finally knew what I wanted to do with this next part, and came up with these thumbnails:

Next time I will show you the rough animation phase!

Nin, nin!

Musical Miscreants (part 2)

2010-07-02T13:54:00.000-07:00

Greetings humans! A good friend of mine by the name of Digiflesh has just released his first album. It's an industrial style with "heavy beats, aggressive synths and driving baselines." I have often slayed many the undead zombie while listening to his music.

"Digiflesh is a weapon of musical mass destruction that's armed and set to detonate on the electronic music scene!"

you can check out his debut album "Disunity" here:

www.digiflesh.blogspot.com

"Disunity" is available for download in all major online music stores.

until next time,

hen - tai!

-07-

V for VICTORY!

2010-06-14T23:09:00.001-07:00

(a sexy bartender designed by ShiroNinja)

This post officially marks overcoming the rigging hump. The bartender rig is officially done which means we're more than half way through rigging human characters. (4 out of 7 to be exact) We also only have 1 dinosaur left to rig, which means in no time we'll be starting textures. I'll be doing a more in depth post about textures in the coming weeks.

Keep your eyes peeled for a trailer as well! It can come at any time...

powering down...

-07-

A look at Rigging

2010-06-09T01:42:00.000-07:00

Greetings autobots! unitzer07 here with a new post on the exciting topic of Rigging!

Some of you may be wondering what exactly Rigging is. Well, a "rig" is a representation of the bones and joints in your body. Those bones and joints can be used to manipulate and animate a model. "Rigging" is the process of creating those bones and giving the artist control over them. Think "putting the strings on the puppet". Check out the video below for an in-depth look at the process of building a rig for our Sheriff character.

As always, questions and comments are encouraged and appreciated!

Rig Demo from zero seven on Vimeo.

see you, space cowboy...

Cookie part II

2010-05-27T22:06:00.000-07:00

Shiro Ninja, sanjou!! I have been ordered by a very high ranking ninja to post new scenes of "The Last Cookie." My mission almost failed when my most valuable weapon, the ninja light table, broke! Thankfully, some skillful technicians fixed my table, and I am able to deliver some new scenes to you. Please be sure to check out the previous Cookie post for the first part of the story if you haven't watched that already!

edit: You can now view this video at a higher quality on Vimeo below

The Last Cookie (Part 2) from zero seven on Vimeo.

Saraba!!

-Shiro Ninja-

Getting into Modeling

2010-05-05T22:41:00.000-07:00

Greetings programs! unitzer07 here. I know I promised to have this ready last week, but unfortunately things sometimes just get in the way of having fun...However, I've found some time to briefly explain the process of modeling for a computer animated production.

Modeling is the process of creating everything you see in a computer animation. For example, take a look at your desk. Notice all the objects on it, their size, shape and form. A modeler is responsible for recreating those objects for use in computer animation. Although there are different methods to modeling, many modelers use a technique called "Box" modeling. This involves starting with a box and basically sculpting it into the shape of the object you want to create. (for example. a human head as seen below:)

video created by chandainmunda

Using this and similar processes, a modeler can create anything they imagine. One disadvantage to making computer animation is how time consuming it can be to create every single object in your world. However, the strength of computer animation is the ability to reuse objects once you have modeled them, unlike in traditional 2-d animation. With 2d animation, each frame is a single drawing. At 24 frames per second, the amount of drawings in a single short film can be staggering. You can think of computer animation as making and then playing with action figures that you designed.

Below is another example of modeling, as well as a helpful link for more information about modeling and modeling tutorials. As always, please feel free to post comments, questions, or requests. If you don't feel comfortable posting to the blog, you can email us at the link to the right.

Until next time....Stay Tuned!

modeling a tree:

http://boylan11.blogspot.com/2007/08/tree-modelling-tutorial.html

links to modeling tutorials:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=25

-07-

stay tuned after this word from our sponsors...

2010-04-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

unitZer07 here! It's been quite some time since I've had a chance to post. I've been very busy troubleshooting and managing our entire pipeline. For those of you who don't know, a pipeline is a system you develop to take you through all the different steps of production. After you've written a script and done storyboards, there are still quite a few steps to be taken: modelling, texturing, rigging, animation, lighting, effects, rendering, compositing and editing. Starting next week with modelling, I'll be going through the list and explaining what goes into each step and how it fits into the overall scheme of production. For now, you'll have to settle for some updates on the main character rigs. First up is our villain :

I have just finished setting up his head. He's definitely looking mean!

next up we have a few poses of the two heroes of our short(courtesy of the keyframe samurai):

We still have to design a saddle for our Cowboy to use. I should have done that before production started, but I'm still learning hehe...

that's all for now!

END OF LINE...

-07-

More cookie

2010-04-12T02:01:00.000-07:00

Hello fellow ninjas. I've finally got some new scenes to share from "The Last Cookie." Thank you to everyone who's been helping with the coloring! Look for your names in the credits once the short is done. Feel free to comment, and keep an eye out for more updates. It's still anyone's game... who will get the last cookie??

Saraba!

edit: This video is now available at a higher quality on Vimeo below

The Last Cookie (Part1) from zero seven on Vimeo.

2010-03-29T23:35:00.000-07:00

Konichiwa interwebbers. Keyframe Samurai here to give you another little taste of Cowboys & Dinosaurs*. :) I just finished the pachycephalosaurus rig, so I decided to have fun and do just a quick little pose. I didn't want to do a full walk cycle because I wanted to continue rigging the rest of the dinos before spending too much time playing. Hopefully Zer07 will give me enough play time to have some fun with all my new dinosaur toys and a few of my soon to come humanoid play things before we moved on to the next step. We still have a ton of work to do. Finish rigging, normal maps, set modeling and texturing......all before animation. Ugh. Lots of work. But twice as much fun. Especially when it's all finished.

Here is the complete Dinosaur lineup. I modeled the Utahraptor, Pachycephalosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Styrakosaurus, & the Triceratops. Zer07 modeled the Apatosaurus.

Next up for rigging is the Parasaur. Look for him soon. As soon as Zer07 finishes Josiah, I'll pose and post some Hero shots of Josiah and Gwanji. Keep an eye out. Jaa mata ne. ^_^

Cowboys and Dinosaurs concept art

2010-03-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

Shiro Ninja sanjou! Along with directing our 2D short, "The Last Cookie," I've also assumed the role of concept/storyboard artist for our CG short. This time, I thought I'd share some more of what's to come for our cowboy story. Here are some character designs I drew. The curvaceous lady is a bartender who flirts with our sad cowboy, and the old man is a semi-useless town sheriff:

This is some concept art of the bartender's tavern. We're going for a rustic Dino-world aesthetic!

That's all I can share for now. Saraba!!

Completed walk cycle

2010-03-10T13:23:00.001-08:00

Keyframe Samurai here once again with the completed walk cycle for the raptor. Dialed back the tail and found out that I will indeed have FK control over the tail instead of the dynamics system controlling it right now. Next up is the pachycephelosaurus, so keep an eye out for him.

Valley of the Gwanji

2010-03-01T02:05:00.000-08:00

Moshi Moshi interwebs!! Keyframe Samurai here, reporting for duty. Here's my first addition of our WIP CG short film. I modeled, and I'll be rigging all our dinosaurs for the short. Here are some early rigging tests I'm currently working on for one of our other main characters. Until next time. Jaa, mata ne (see you later).

Every Cowboy sings a sad sad song....

2010-02-28T21:42:00.000-08:00

I've been working on rigging our cowboy character and made a bit of progress today.

To those of you asking..."We already saw facial poses, how is this progress?" I'll tell you. In my previous post I was merely testing out how well the face would pose. For that test I was not using a rig to make the character "ooo" and "bleh!". Some of you at this point might ask..."What is this rig we keep hearing about?". A "rig"is what makes an action figure posable.The figure's "rig" allows the arms to bend at the elbows, shoulders and wrist . A marionette's rig is the strings attached to it. Basically without a rig the character can't move. So What you see below has a rig inside of it making our cowboy very, very sad.

END OF LINE....

-zer07-

The Last Cookie (W.I.P.)

2010-02-28T19:00:00.000-08:00

Shiro Ninja, sanjou!! Greetings! I am Shiro Ninja, here to share some 2D fun with you. Back in Ninja film school, I made a short film called, "The Last Cookie." At the time I had no formal animation training, and it was always my desire to redo it someday and make it awesome! Now with a few years of animation under my obi, I'm in the process of remaking this short film. Here's what we have so far...

That's all for now. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Ninja smoke bomb!!

Human Rigging Automation Complete!

2010-02-27T21:28:00.001-08:00

I have officially finished the human rig script. Complete with facial setup.

What this means for anyone who doesn't understand animation lingo is, now I'm one step away from being able to make a character actually move.

We have an ambitious seven different human and 6 different dinosaur characters to rig. I will be doing all of the human character rigging. My deadline is fast approaching.

7 characters in 5 weeks...can it be done? Is it unreasonable? Too ambitous?

KICK REASON TO THE CURB AND DO THE IMPOSSIBLE!

-zer07-

Questions? Feel free to ask!

First post!

2010-02-15T23:38:00.000-08:00

Welcome to STUDIO GATTAI! servicing the web with fine cartoon action from now till infinity....

I'm unitzer07 one of the creative minds behind STUDIO GATTAI, in our first post, we'll see wip shots of our upcoming CG short film..

main character face animation setup(above, below)

some early rigging on a raptor:

another angle:

We would love to get any feedback or questions so if you happen to stumble across this blog feel free to ask anything you want about Computer Graphics, Animation, our process, or anything else that comes to mind...

more progress to come...

until next time

GATTAI DA!

-zer07-