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Wing It!
2023
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Article
  • Wing It!

Announcing "Pet Projects": a New Open Movie

Announcing the next Blender Studio open project: stylized cartoon animation!
  • 19 Jan 2023
  • 2 min read
Francesco Siddi
Francesco Siddi Producer
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After devoting over one year of focus to the topic of realism with Charge, it’s now time to move in a new direction! Aiming at the holy grail of hyper-realism is not the only way to push the boundaries of what is possible with Blender. There are many more avenues to explore, many more workflows to cover. So what about a highly stylized, light-hearted animated episode?

Very early concept drawing by Rik and Vivien.
Very early concept drawing by Rik and Vivien.

This was the pitch presented to the Blender Studio team: let’s create something cartoony and serializable, so that the design language and animation style could be re-used consistently across multiple stories. This would be a good framework to go back to when the studio is in-between larger productions, and a useful foundation for artists to explore storytelling.

Concept art by Vivien.
Concept art by Vivien.

The first episode of Pet Projects is being directed by Rik Schutte, with art direction by Vivien Lulkowski, and story and editorial support by Hjalti Hjalmarsson, with the whole team at Blender Studio involved in the production.

Here is the idea: An uptight engineer gets an unwelcome visit from a enthusiastic wannabe-pilot, causing both of them to be launched into the air inside an out-of-control space shuttle. Or, as Ton mentioned once, "developers are cats, artists are dogs"!

Given the target size and pace of the project (around 2 minutes of duration, around 4 months production cycle), technical challenges will be limited, with more focus on workflows and documentation. Sharing production knowledge is one of the key goals of Blender Studio!

There is potential for more extensive Grease Pencil use. As a matter of fact, the team has already been using the Story Pencil add-on to board the first versions of the short!

A sneak peek at the storyboarding workflow by Rik.

After a couple of months of development, Pet Projects is currently in pre-production and the progress can be followed here on the Blender Studio website.

Early concepts by Rik.
Early concepts by Rik.

Stay tuned for more updates!

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17 comments
Larry James
Larry James
March 18th, 2023

:-D

Craig Wieland
Craig Wieland
Feb. 4th, 2023

love it!

Iván Rojo
Iván Rojo
Jan. 29th, 2023

Awesome, I really like that style!!

Kreessan Exinor
Kreessan Exinor
Jan. 28th, 2023

Super excited for this!!

Leslie Solorzano
Leslie Solorzano
Jan. 26th, 2023

Super exciting! I'll get my popcorn ready haha

Weston Jones
Weston Jones
Jan. 25th, 2023

wow! beautiful as always. can't wait!

Michael Carella
Michael Carella
Jan. 25th, 2023

This is going to be awesome, looks like it could have a 'Bad Guys' type of 2d/3d hybrid, would love to learn more about the process similiar to that. Either way, it'll be great.

Pedro Chaves Martins
Pedro Chaves Martins
Jan. 22nd, 2023

I liked it 😀

yujiaxin
yujiaxin
Jan. 22nd, 2023

adorable!

shmuel lowenbraun
shmuel lowenbraun
Jan. 22nd, 2023

nice!

Matt Jordan
Matt Jordan
Jan. 21st, 2023

So many great projects but this might be my favorite one yet. This is right down my alley.

Al Sande
Al Sande
Jan. 20th, 2023

Great news!  I always learn so much from the production lessons so it's good to hear there will be a focus on workflows and documentation in this one  - techniques I learned from previous films, especially Sprite Fright, have showed up in many of my projects since.  I'm particularly looking forward to learning new ways to integrate more grease pencil techniques into my 3d workflow...

Helge Maus
Helge Maus
Jan. 20th, 2023

YES :-)

Adam Earle
Adam Earle
Jan. 20th, 2023

yep have to say that I am jealous of the people who are working on this one. I really do wish it was me.

Jakub Steiner
Jakub Steiner
Jan. 20th, 2023

Mean cats? I'm IN!

Rik Schutte
Rik Schutte
Jan. 20th, 2023

second <3

Vivien Lulkowski
Vivien Lulkowski
Jan. 19th, 2023

first

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