Artist Research ‐ Tokyo Plastic

Tokyo Plastic

Tokyo Plastic are animators probably most known for their cartoon like style of 3D animation which is used in several adverts, idents and award winning short films. 

The Tail Gunner

 The Tail Gunner is a 40 second long animations which follows the dreams of a sleeping cat and how it is dreaming of being the pilot of a fighter plane. The animation goes from the cat purring as it sleeps quietly, to a noisy firefight and then back to the cat sleeping.

The 3D model of the cat is deliberately designed to be cute, with oversized eyes and large fur. This is so the contrast between the sleeping cat and the cat in the fighter plane appears even more extreme and helps add to the comical aspect of the animation.

As the cat dreams, the animation is in black and white with a film grain almost like an old film. This could link to the narrative as the cat could have been watching old war films, affecting it's dreams. Due to the old film style, the film conforms to a lot of the stereotypical camera shots for example; Footage of planes flying away from the camera, over the wing shots and close up shots of the pilot (the cat in this case). The jump cuts which move from the mid range shot to the extreme close ups do not fit in with the style of old films and as they stand out, they help add to the implied psychopathy of the cat.

The techniques used which I find particularly impressive in this animation are the use of texture. The fur of the cat is extremely visceral and helps immerse the viewer in the character of the protagonist. Although I am unsure about how the ground below the plane and the cloud layer were produced, the technique is very good at adding depth to the animation. The way I think the ground was produced was by creating a texture (maybe from a photo) and then using 3D modeling or sculpting software to raise up parts of the image such as mountains. This gives a more 3D look to the texture without having to spend a significant amount of time modeling a landscape just for the background of the animation.

Another technique which is admirable, is the way that the light of the machine fire reflects offs the cats eyes although this was probably achieved by changing the material of the eye on the model and by creating a modified light source to create the shape of the muzzle flash in the eye.