Jul 022012
May 112013
Welcome to this week’s pick! Today I’ve got the second post in this series of artists sketching on a cintiq. Enjoy!
イラストレーター りょーちも (Illustrator Ryouchimo)
May 072013
Hi everyone, Marina and Danny here today with a special website update! Not only do we have some new artwork for you all, but we’ve also got *drumroll* a special guest! Let’s introduce her!
Thanks for joining us everybody~ Our guest today is Akira from the band Shinsei!
Konnichiwa~!! I’m the bassist for Shinsei! You can call me Aki~!
Can you tell us a bit about your band?
Sure! Shinsei is a visual kei influenced band based out of Boston and NY. Our vocalist Kenji-kun ran into me at my job at a nightclub and after a long discussion we discovered we both had musical background and decided to form a group of our own. For a little while we had a drummer Xero and no guitar player so we had fill in guitarist for a while. Then Xero stepped down and we picked up our current guitarist A-Key at the end of our mini tour when we played at the Otakon Matsuri show (also where I met Danny!). So we gained a guitar and lost a drummer… However we are still moving forward until we find a permanent drummer. This week we have released our very first album “Restoration” shortly after our one year birthday~!
Oh that’s right, so you met Danny at last year’s Otakon! How did that go? I hope you didn’t get weirded out by Danny or anything…
Fufufu she was probably shocked by how cool I was!
Ah ha ha no not at all- actually I was hoping I did not weird HIM out. Although I admit I was expecting him to be kind of.. how do you say.. solemn~ Ha ha but since then we have become good friends now I think.
Yeah, Danny seems to be the type to get easily misunderstood, especially before people meet him. He certainly has a solemn looking face doesn’t he? hahah
S-solemn…?
May 042013
Welcome to this week’s pick! Today I’d like to share a trailer for “Kairos,” an animated trailer based on a new French comic book. It’s produced by Studio La Cachette, a young Paris-based studio founded by four Gobelins graduates: Nuno Alves Rodgrigues, Oussama Bouacheria, Julien Chheng, and Ulysse Malassagne. You can check out a preview of the original comic book here: http://www.bdgest.com/preview-1259-BD-kairos-1-3.html
CREDITS
Réalisation & Production: Studio La Cachette
Idée Originale & Direction Artistique: Ulysse Malassagne
Storyboard: Oussama Bouacheria
Dévelopement Visuel: Nuno Alves Rodrigues, Alice Dieudonné, Julien Chheng, Ulysse Malassagne, Rémi Salmon
Animation: Nuno Alves Rodrigues, Oussama Bouacheria, Alice Bissonnet, Julien Chheng, Hanne Galvez, Rachid Guendouze, Sandrine Han Jin Kuang, Ulysse Malassagne, Stéphanie Mercier, Bung Nguyen, Stéphanie Pavoine, Julien Perron
Décors: Alice Dieudonné, Ulysse Malassagne
Compositing: Ulysse Malassagne
Design Sonore et Mixage: Florian Calmer
Musique: X-Ray Dog
It’s very refreshing to see such high quality 2D animation coming from the west! It features super dynamic camera movements that harkens to many of the best anime fight sequences. What stood out the most to be though, was that this was done in flash! It recreated the art style of the comics beautifully, particularly in high speed moments. Try taking another look at 1:20 and notice how instead of using a blur effect like many other films would, they instead drew out those squiggly blobs to indicate the speed. Let’s hope to see more stuff from this studio soon!
May 022013
Hi everyone, we’ve got another short blog to share today. On April 3rd, Danny went to check out the New York Game of Thrones Exhibit!
This was a traveling exhibit presented by HBO, where they displayed props, weapons, armor and costumes from the show. They even had a replica iron throne to get your picture taken on! They only stopped in five cities internationally – Toronto, New York, Sao Paolo, Amsterdam and Belfast – so I felt quite lucky to be able to go!
Well, let’s get right to the photos, shall we?
These first few were taken outside the venue, which was at 3 W. 57th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue. The line moved quickly and only ended up being an hour long which was sweet.
Only in Danny’s world is an hour long line considered good…
Well, I heard the line over the weekend was around five hours…
F-five hours???
Fufufu don’t underestimate nerds! Five hours is nothing if you’re waiting in line for something you love!
I’m… not sure what to say to that. Let’s just move on to the actual exhibit.
The exhibit room was smaller than I thought it would be, but was crammed with Game of Thrones goodness!
Apr 272013
Welcome to this week’s pick! Today I’ve got a short film for you called “Little Witch Academia (リトルウィッチアカデミア).” From wiki: “Little Witch Academia (リトルウィッチアカデミア Ritoru Witchi Akademia) is a 2013 animated short produced by Trigger for Anime Mirai 2013. The short was created and directed by Yoh Yoshinari and written by Masahiko Otsuka and was released in theaters on March 2, 2013. Trigger later began streaming the short with English subtitles on YouTube from April 19, 2013.” Trigger is a new anime studio co-founded by Dead Leaves, Gurren Lagann, and Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt director Hiroyuki Imaishi.
Little Witch Academia is not only a lot of fun to watch, but is filled with animation magic! (pun intended =P) I won’t list off every single moment, but I particularly loved how the characters had a very light, fun touch to their movements such as the little monster in the dungeon and how fluid things got, particularly with the dragon at the end. The minotaur melting at 12:00 was also especially cool. I’m looking to what else this new studio will bring us!