₦airaland Forum

@Melvi Thank you. It was a team effort. I was in charge of creative direction/initial concept and the hands-on work was done by Sageer Carpenter.

Thanks guys.

It's a typical knee jerk reaction which will calm down as time goes on. When the London tube bombings happened every one was running away from anyone who looked 'brown'. That included Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs, African Arabs, lighter skinned Africans. And every sector of society did this, including Nigerians.

But in the mean time I'm not going to apologise for being Nigerian.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4Ou87VtFvM&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1[/flash]

Here's a short from our studio. It's an animated,light hearted look at the difficulties Nigerians face whilst travelling.

I love animations and cartoons from all genres. From political through to straight up looney tunes. You can't beat it. But now, I'd say I'm into series like Family Guy and Samurai Champloo. Though it's been a while since I've looked into what's new. I actually try not to so I don't get hooked to any more series. Not enough hours in the day.

Good start. Just a little word of advice. Be careful with saying things like , 'NAIRALAND EXCLUSIVE!!!' unless it really is one. There are guys like , Grafikdon for instance, who have been lipsynching for over 3 years now and I think he's even recently landed a TV broadcasting deal. Just read the forum posts over the years and you'll see the hardwork people have already put in.

All the best.

Good work guys. I think the most successful part was the set building and rendering. There are some technical issues such as lip synching which could have been done better. But I know you guys and you are probably working on sorting that out.

The good thing is we are now getting some good technical proficiency all round. However, what was lacking from the piece for me was a visual style or creative direction. I don't know what the brief was but I'm judging it on what I saw. The piece looked neutral for lack of a better word. I didn't see a visual style I loved or hated. It was more bland. Though the technical skills help us reach it, the creative direction is really what sells and differentiates animations and even movies. I know you guys know that but I'm just dropping a little reminder and I know it's only a matter of time before we stop being overwhelmed or too focused on technical and have more fun with the creative side and Blackouse will be there at the forefront. We're also doing our little bit here at our studios to up the visual creativity.

Keep it up, there's a lot of hard work ahead for all Nigerian based studios.

@Bandely
Thank you

@honeric01
No where else unfortunately because we only did one for the sports fans. We will produce another soon hopefully depending on sponsorship deals. But if you want to see what your fellow Nigerians are doing generally in the field of animation then go to the graphics section.

And of course thanks Kemjisuper.

Very nice. I would actually like to see it on a proper television display, at its native resolution. It would be good to run some intense VFX shots integrated with the footage from a cam like this. Maybe in 2010 we'll get the opportunity.

@Zpixel
Thanks. The man with the eye for detail. You know you are famous for that.

The texture was a creative direction decision from me. We could have made it move but the effort needed to do it wasn't worth it in my opinion as it didn't lend any real net value to the project. I was trying to experiment and achieve a type of look which I'd say we were 70% successful in attaining. If we were going for a more photoreal 3D or even 2D realism approach then we would have made it move as then it would have actually detracted from the story.

Hope that explains it.

Interesting,

@ Pharoh
I understand now. Yes I have posted it on the Graphics section. That's where we usually have the majority of our work posted. But as we wanted a target audience test, we posted in other sections so more people (not involved in animation etc) could see it.

@Grafikdon
First of all, I have to mention that I've been following your work for years now and love what you are doing so keep it up. You basically got the points we were trying to hit withh the piece. Animation is great for exagerration so we just added a few details to the characters but not in negative sense. It's not about poking fun at the characters but admiring their love of football and how they express it.

@davidif
Thanks and I replied to you properly in the sports section but yeah we loved the way the main character flowed with his lyrics!

@ Pharoh
What do you mean by a section on Nairaland? Could you explain further? Thanks

@davidif
Thanks. Actually we want to do pieces from different areas of the country because there are so many flavours! There are just too many colourful Nigerians around and once you get them talking about football, the party really starts! But yeah we kept laughing our heads off through working on this one.

'Nigeria's flying baby'

Could you post up more details and times please so we can watch it? If this is true then this is wonderful news. Is it the Mark of Uhuru series or the other one which name slips my mind now?

Either way, big congrats to Grafikdon. I've been a big fan of his work for years now.

Looking forward to more details on this.

Hi all,
Here's a link to a short animation we produced. We came up with an idea for a football related advert campaign as the world cup is just around the corner.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcO04YNTsSs&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b[/flash]


We are looking to pitch the idea to several corporate bodies but we wanted to test it out on the public first. We have already posted it up on the sports section as that's where the target audience really is and the response has been really good so far. As there are usually debates about adverts in this section I thought I'd post it up on here as well to see what people thought.

Thanks again

@FBS
I'd love to but we only did one! We felt the idea was a winner but we wanted to know what the real target audience i.e. Nigerians sports fans would think of it. So we self funded and produced this mock 'advert' to prove the idea had merit.

Have you seen how badly the Under 17 tournament was publicised? It was such a missed opportunity to REALLY showcase Nigeria. Look at the ruthless efficiency with which the South Africans are publicising the 2010 world cup. We know local companies (Banks,Food&Beverages)and international companies/brands with a large Nigerian market (MTN,Nokia, Guiness etc.) will advertise on Nigerian screens throughout the world cup event next year. We just want the adverts and programming to at least relate to Nigerians in some way, be good quality and not be generic imported ones. So this is our little way of trying to ensure that happens.

Once again I don't want to derail the thread but I just wanted to give you a bit more background into why we did the animation. Thanks again. We're really encouraged by the responses so far.

@ All thank you very much for the comments. We're trying our best.

@ Brooklyn Well, there was a slight 'adjustment' in the groin area,

@Pharoh I don't want to derail the thread and get too deep into the whole Nigerian animation industry as it's the sports section. But even though the climate is tough in Nigeria for what we do, rest assured there are companies and individuals working hard towards producing more local content both for children and adults. We just need more support from the sponsors,government,banks the list goes on. That's why I posted it here to see what the reaction would be. It doesn't mean anything if the public can't relate to what we produce in any way.

Thanks all, spread the link to more sports fans and keep the comments coming.

@Stillwater Thank you very much for your comments. Much appreciated
@gdi Glad you liked the site. It's something we're going to have fun with and keep developing. It was done in conjunction with another Nairalander but I always forget his online alias. Micha3l I think it is. Anyway, he's called Micheal and he's a good guy to work with.

No problem. I just wanted to make sure there was no issue. And I just wanted to clarify that we're not interested in spreading any viruses.

If you watch Youtube or are familiar with it then you won't have any problem with our link as that is the platform it is hosted on. It's a very popular video streaming forum.
www.youtube.com for more info.

@JeSoul Thanks for that.We we really enjoyed working on it because the material was so funny. We actually based it on a random clip I found on the net of some wonderful Nigerian football fans. I just thought it'd be great to do an animation of this.Thats how it started.

@Ogaga4Luv good to see you on the Nairaland sports section as opposed to Youtube.

All the best.

@tytylayor and @Clemcykul I am not sure what you mean by a virus. Could you be more specific? The link is a valid Youtube link to which we've had no reports of a virus connection. So post up some details and we'll take a look into it.

It's a link to a funny animation we produced and we thought it would be nice to post it in the jokes section of Nairaland as you rarely get to see what Nigerian computer animation/3D/VFX companies are producing.

Thanks FBS. We are actually aiming to speak to corporate bodies to sponsor a series of them for broadcast during next year's world cup. But we wanted to test out the idea and there's nowhere better than on the Nairaland sports section where the fans live.

Here's a short cartoon dedicated to all the Nigerian Football fans out there.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcO04YNTsSs&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b"[/flash]

I usually post these things in the 'graphics&animation' section but thought you guys would like to see it.

Here's a short, funny animation about Nigerian football fans that I thought you guys might like.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcO04YNTsSs&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b"[/flash]

Here's the latest animation from our studio.It's dedicated to Nigerian football fans,their bravado and their irrational love of the game!Enjoy guys!

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcO04YNTsSs&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b[/flash]

Well done.

I agree with everything you said. I rarely post on the property section but I read it a lot and understand that you have not taken this decision lightly. I experience the same issues you mentioned in my field to. Maybe not as extreme but I have an idea what you have gone through. There is a lot of money in property. Where there's money, there are thugs. And in Nigeria they'll do everything to crush someone like you.

What I would say is not to give up. Take some time out. There is still a lot of value you can give. Maybe you should reassess how you do it so you don't become a martyr. You can still do the good work but maybe now you will do it more on your own terms.

Whatever decision you make, thank you for the good work you have put in so far. But don't give up because it means the others have succeeded in there goal. Which is to silence people like you.

All the best.

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Here's the 2nd in our free training video series for 3D beginners. We are trying to focus on key concepts that are applicable across most major 3D platforms such as Lightwave/Maya/3D Studio Max. We hope it's helpful to you guys out there starting on the road of 3D animation, The very very infinite road of 3D animation,