Saturday, January 31, 2009

Has The World Hit 'PEAK ANIME'?

Disturbing if true: ICV2 has an article entitled, simply, Worldwide Anime Market Shrinking. In a lecture by TV Tokyo’s Keisuke Iwata, he noted that due to market saturation, illegal downloading, the worldwide recession, and the rising yen, “It is easy to imagine the global marketplace shrinking from 2010 onward." According to Iwata there may be little or no growth potential for anime sales outside of Japan and that the industry “may have to go back to the way it was in the past — back to selling Japanese animation only to the Japanese marketplace."

And with a market already glutted and the massive lead time and resources required to create anime, we should expect to see big crashes. Imagi Studios already had to get bridge financing to complete production of Astro Boy.

Anime News Network has reported that the total revenue of the Japanese anime industry rose rapidly from 2003 when it was estimated at 167.4 billion yen (about $1.9 billion), peaked in 2006 at $258.8 billion yen (about $2.9 billion) and then fell to 236.9 billion yen in 2007. Figures for 2008 aren't available yet, but given the financial distress of many anime producers, another decline is a foregone conclusion.

Also note that Iwata's market factors of market saturation, illegal downloading, and the worldwide recession apply equally to comics.

Source: comicmix

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Pixar Links...

Pixar Animation Studios official site
http://www.pixar.com/

The Pixar Blog fan forums and news
http://pixarblog.blogspot.com/

Pixar Planet/ Upcoming Pixar fan forums and news
http://www.pixarplanet.com/blog/

The Pixar Touch fan forums and news
http://thepixartouch.typepad.com/

Pixar history page (by Alvy Ray Smith)
http://alvyray.com/Pixar/default.htm

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Year of OX


Happy New Year of OX!! 2009 will be a TOUGH year for everyone.
--盡忠職守,勤奮努力,安於現狀而沒埋怨,有力量但溫和堅毅而不屈。

Monday, January 26, 2009

Photoshop Tool Bar Evolution

ps-evolution.jpg

網上看 到photoshop工具列的演進圖,雖然所列出的version不齊全,記得第一次接觸Photoshop是大專讀Design年代,當時的儲存只有1.44MB Floppy Disk可用,連CD-Rom也還未有普及... 現在工作用的也不是最新的vserion CS3,只是PS7 (Linux version)。

對我來說,最感動的是CS1才新加的"WRAP"功能,實在偉大。

你的第一個photoshop又是哪一個version呢?Which one is your first Photoshop version?

SHOCKER AD

"你對你份工滿意嗎?" 好攪鬼的 Recruitment Ad :)
之前度緊一個有關 "SHOCKER上位之路"的短篇故事(純粹自娛的那種)條橋有點相近...
see my previous posts related to SHOCKER:
Power up SHOCKER and New Costume for SHOCKER
Funny Shocker photos

T28 High Res Movie


T28 High Res Movie Ready for Download, pls go to VIEW TEASER, and click the MORE OPTIONS button at bottom right and you can select the format.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Comic Book Movies in 2009

2009 is another year of movies based on graphic novels and manga:

Coraline February 6
A stop-motion animated adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s horror novella for young readers.

Fanboys February 6
A group of Star Wars fans who make a pilgrimage across the country in 1998 to see Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace before one of them dies.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li February 27
Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk stars in this live action film based on the Capcom video game, which could spur some interest in the Street Fighter comics, manga, and anime.

Watchmen March 6
No film has sold more books than Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen—the trailer for the film ignited a sales explosion that is still rippling through the comic and bookstore markets where Watchmen has remained the best-selling graphic novel since July.


Monsters and Aliens March 27
This Dreamworks 3-D animated feature is loosely based on the “Rex Havoc and the Ass-Kickers of the Fantastic” comics that appeared in Warren Presents in 1981.

Dragonball Evolution April 8
Fox’s live action adaptation of Akira Toriyama’s Dragonball manga.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine May 1
The only comic book superhero film this summer, Wolverine remains one of Marvel’s most popular characters, and having him played by Hugh Jackman doesn’t hurt.

Star Trek May 8
Director J.J. Abrams (Alias, Lost) tries to revive the Star Trek franchise with a sharp young cast playing the characters from the original series just after they graduated from the Academy.

Terminator Salvation May 22
This effects-heavy blockbuster franchise returns for a fourth go-round during a summer. IDW has the comics.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen June 26This sequel to the hugely successful first live action Transformers movie is likely to be one of the summer’s big hits. Check out IDW’s extensive line of Transformers comics.

G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra August 7
Will this Hasbro property be able to replicate the success of Transformers? If so, there are plenty of comics (IDW), toys, and other merchandise available.

Whiteout September 11
Whiteout is an adaptation of Greg Rucka’s 1999 comic book/graphic novel published by Oni Press. Kate Beckinsale stars as U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko who has to solve a murder at a base in Antarctica in just three days as the ferocious polar winter approaches.


The Surrogates September 25
Bruce Willis stars in this adaptation of the Top Shelf comic book mini-series by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele, a high concept science fiction saga.

Astro Boy October 23
Hong Kong-based Imagi Entertainment is producing this CGI version of Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy.

source: Dave @ www.captainbluehen.com

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

and more Shapes



just want to play with some graphics...

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

More Shapes



more shapes... graphics, pattern i like

Monday, January 19, 2009

Shapes


These kinds of pattern and shapes is keep poping up in my mind recently, what does it mean??

Saturday, January 17, 2009

T28 Fun Art



I did few little silly art for fun personally when I was working on the T28 project in 2007, just some "KuSo" art... I did more actually and you can see it here, enjoy : )
see my other "KuSo" art and stuffs

Saturday, January 10, 2009

T28 Teaser Website Launch!


Tetsujin 28 Teaser website launch today!! please take a look on that and give me some comment.


Also, the cover image of Imagi website also updated.

here are some previous posts related to T28...

Monday, January 05, 2009

Suzuki x Xbox



Ridiculous? Take the gaming on road? Two 360's, 2 projectors, and 2 flat screens was added to Dashboard of Suzuki. It's fun though : ]

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Astro Boy’s Makeover

Ken Tsumura executive vice president of Imagi Animation and Tim Cheung, Vice President of animation talked little bit about Astro Boy’s Makeover when they were in Siggraph Asia 2008 computer graphics exhibition and conference.

"WHEN they saw the initial designs for Astro Boy in the upcoming computer animated flick, the one thing that the Japanese owners did not fancy was the size of his rear end.... “We had discussions of how round and curvy his body proportions are and we designed him more lean.” read full article

The StarOnline website has another article "What's Gettinng Made?"
It listed out anime is going to be adapted into Hollywood movie, the majority of the films are currently in production or only proposals.
Dragonball: Evolution, AstroBoy, Akira, Gatchaman, Robotech, Ninja Scroll, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell. read full article

Thursday, January 01, 2009

New Astroboy images

2 new Astro Boy images is added to cover of imagi website. there are more new images... pls click OUR FILMS/ASTRO BOY