Every once in a while we come across an animation that not only inspires us, but changes the way that we think about animation. It opens our eyes to fresh new ideas and motivates us to keep experimenting. Disney’s short film “Paperman” was one of those animations that deeply connected with us. It combined 3D animation with 2D methods to create something that was simply a pleasure to look at. One Small Step by TAIKO studios is another one of those animations that has captivated us through its beautiful use of 3D and 2D visuals. The end result is something that we ultimately aspire to reach ourselves. 

One Small Step is a short film about an ambitious young girl who aspires to be an astronaut with the support of her humble father. Andrew Chesworth (Head of Development at TAIKO Studios) refers to the film as a “love letter to everyone who chased that impossible dream, and the family that supported them through it”. This is something that we can deeply relate to, but story aside, the visuals alone have captivated our hearts and inspired us to continue reaching for the stars.

You can check out the official trailer for One Small Step below:

To learn more about TAIKO Studios and One Small Step, visit taikostudios.com

UPDATE: September  20, 2018

TAIKO Studios has just released the full version of their incredible short film. You can check it out below:

Director Allan Ungar and actor Nathan Fillion have teamed up to bring to life what could only be referred to as a dream come true by fans of the Uncharted video games series by Naughty Dog. As massive fans of the series ourselves, we feel similar sentiments.

We’ve been hooked on the epic action and the wise cracking Nathan Drake ever since we stumbled across the first Uncharted game many years ago.  We’ve always referred to the Uncharted games as interactive movies and have talked many times about the idea of an actual live action Uncharted film. There was only one person that we could ever imagine playing the real life version of Nathan Drake, and that’s Nathan Fillion.

Fillion, being a fan of the games himself, was always on board with the idea of playing Drake in a live action rendition; however, the dream just never came to pass. But thanks to this incredible fan film, we get a taste of what that dream could look like.

You can check out the 15-minute fan film below:

In 2008 we had the privilege of collaborating with the incredibly talented Stix in an effort to help breathe life into an ambitious idea. Antwon Spinach was a cartoon bursting with creativity, humor, and positive messages.

When we signed on to help bring the idea to life, we had many objectives to accomplish. This included designing the Antwon Spinach logo. While this wasn’t exactly a top priority, we still gave it the proper time and treatment that any logo design deserves. We pulled inspiration from sources that also inspired the animation and art style for the show.

Shows like Dexter’s Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, and Powerpuff Girls played a big role in helping to bring the Antwon Spinach logo to fruition. We also looked to various comic books for inspiration. Our initial goal with the logo was to make it feel like a logo that could be seen on a classic Saturday morning cartoon. We wanted it to have a ‘superhero’ feel and be fun at the same time. Ultimately we were very happy with the outcome of the design, and the logo itself started to inspire aspects of the production.

You can learn more about the development of Antwon Spinach in our MAKING OF post, or simply visit the Antwon Spinach project page.

Now this is a sight to see.

Courtesy of Disney UK on Twitter, we were graced with a sneak peak image from the next trailer of Wreck-It Ralph 2. In this image we see a gathering of the different princesses from the Disney universe (voiced by the living original actors) all together in what is sure to be an amazing scene. We’re huge fans of Wreck-It Ralph and we’re very excited for Ralph and Vanellope’s newest adventure into the world of the internet!

The latest trailer should be coming soon, but if you haven’t seen the first trailer yet, you can check it out below.

UPDATE: The newest trailer is out now! You can check it out below.

Never sweat a blue shirt again with Blue Shirt Club – the world’s most absorbent underarm shield! We were brought on board – in collaboration with What a Bee! Studios – to produce an animated ad for Blue Shirt Club. To say the least, it was an interesting project to work on.

This marks the first time that we were asked to produce the art and animation in an anime style. When we first started studying animation (over 15 years ago), anime was the very first style that we sought to replicate. In fact, anime is what inspired us to pursue animation and attempt to hone our skills. But that was over 15 years ago.

Diving back into the world of anime took some studying and review of what we had learned and practiced back then. We’re pretty happy with the end results of this ad, but due to the incredibly short turnaround time that we had for this project, we couldn’t push it as far as we wanted to. Still, we’re happy with what we’ve managed to do within the time frame.

You’ll be able to learn more about what went into the development when we release our MAKING OF for this project. In the meantime, you can check out the full ad below:

To learn more about Blue Shirt Club, please visit BlueShirtClub.com.