I cannot believe this was made by one person all by himself.   Wow!   The line between what one can and can’t do with or without a team is becoming blurred.

Imagine in 5 years time someone making a Pixar level movie by themselves.   Okay maybe 10 years but this just proves we are moving in that direction.

You want to make your own anime?   Well here is proof you can.

I’ll be hoping to get some information from the creator and post it here.

 

This is a shot of the last day at PDI.  It is sad to think that all these people are now unemployed.

I always wondered what it would be like for a few of these guys to get together and create their own properties.

It would be awesome to see more artist owned endeavors. It would be awesome for some of these guys to get together and work on their own intellectual properties and make their own money vs working for the status quot.   I know a lot of people say it takes millions to make a movie but quite honestly that is no longer true.

Here is the breakdown.

1 person can make an animated feature.  It has already been proven.

MdotStrange, Jeff Lew, David Krupicz, Nina Paley, Tyler Gibb etc.  Each did an entire feature.

MdotStrange has done 3 films and is able to do one in a  year.    So in truth it does not take a massive team of 1000s.  Also it doesn’t take years upon years.   Jeff Lew did it all in 3. I have been following newer cg artists and they are turning out 3 minutes a month by themselves.  Imagine if you had 10 guys doing that together.

Now it is true you will not get Pixar quality but you can create pretty good quality that is watchable.  Also if you have to create out of necessity and find ways around limitations you could probably have some really cool styles coming out of it.

Here is the perfect example.  R’ha was done by one person in the span of 7 months.    It is roughly 5:30 minutes long minus credits and such.  Now imagine you had 10 guys working together.  In 1 1/2 year you could have a full feature with similar quality.

If folks like the Asylum, Video Briquendo and the folks behind Kiarra the Brave can turn a profit imagine what 3-10 great artists from Dreamworks could accomplish if they worked more the way these indies who have completed full length films.

The tools are there.  The talent is there.   Why is there not more of these?

Okay I haven’t yet started to talk about software and actual HOW-To but there is some great software out there that could really help you out.  Right now I’m not talking about that just yet but Crazy Talk Animator gave me an idea of creating animation more quickly and giving you a certain style.

Of course you can also use Smith Micro’s Anime Studio, Adobe Flash, Toon Boom and Synfig (freeware).

Crazy Talk and all the others allow for a 2d puppet like animation.  It is pretty popular on shows created for Adult Swim.  Titmouse uses it alot.  I think they use Flash for their work.

But cutout animation can work for comedy style anime.  There are so many tools including 3d packages that can do the cutout animation style.  With a little creativity you can create some cool work.   You can even include motion capture.

Here are some shows that may give you an idea of what you can do with cutout style animation.

You can use a combination of tweening and puppet style animation to get things done more quickly.

I hope to get my hands on Crazy Talk animator because it has some sweet shortcuts I could really use in combination with After Effects.    You can do a 360 of the character in 2d and apply motion capture.

If you are not a great artist you can send the template to an artist you find on Deviantart.com or Fiverr.com and have them create all the angles for you with the template.  Easy as that.

All you have to do is add a little imagination.

I noticed that cutout, skeletal rig looks be be used on the below animated video game.  It is called Broken Age.  While it is not an anime per se the concept is still the same and can be applied to any style.  Notice earlier I mentioned the cutout and tweening can be used very well on a comedy style anime but with a little imagination and a lot of story it can also tell more serious tales like Broken Age.  I personally think it is a thing of beauty.

Your anime can be funny or even a thing of beauty using this style and animation!

So far I’m trying to give you several ideas on where you can go in making your anime.  All these methods can help with Time, Money and Ability.    I hope this is helping you to think outside the box and not simply try to tackle a frame by frame animation which would be really hard especially if you are not the greatest drawer.

This can give you an option to farm out your work to someone with a better skill set than you.  I guarantee if I looked in my usual places I could find someone who can create all the parts you need for the template used by Crazy Talk.  I’m even thinking within $45 USD per character at a quality rivaling Broken Age.    The cool thing is when you have a rigged asset character you can use it over and over again.

Check out www.Deviantart.com and www.fiverr.com to find artists on a smaller budget.  You could collab but that is a whole other subject which I have a serious negative take on it but I think I may help you find collabers.   Maybe in the next couple of articles.