The German game studio art director discusses his indie video game and its unique style, combining stop-motion animation with 3D scanning and CG compositing.
Check out Terry Ibele’s Animation Industry Podcast, featuring a new podcast every week focusing on the stories of today’s animation professionals - how they got to where they are and what they learned along the way. Now home to 251 episodes, the podcasts cover all areas of the industry, including storyboarding, writing, animating, directing, visual development, and game design. Guests have included returning guest Aaron Augenblick; the notorious JJ Villard; Spike & Mike’s Spike Decker; Disney Director John Musker; Sony Lead Animator Humberto Rosa; Frederator’s Fred Seibert; Tumble Leaf’s Scarlet Nelson; and many others from major animation studios all over the world.
Podcast EP 251: Video Game Art Director Ole Tillmann & Creating the Stopmo Style for ‘Harold Halibut’
This episode features German indie Slow Bros Studio art director Ole Tillmann, who talks about his work on the game Harold Halibut, which is known for its unique style. Everything in the game - the characters, backgrounds, assets, etc. - were meticulously hand-crafted in stop-motion, then 3D scanned and composited/animated in CG. In this chat, Tillmann shares how he came up with and executed the style, as well as the video game’s 10-year development history.
Tune in to Ibele and Tillmann to hear:
- What Tillmann did to get Harold Halibut funded.
- How Tillmann stayed motivated on the ten-year project (with no end in sight!).
- How big of a team is needed to develop an indie video game.
Ibele has begun to publish the interviews as videos as well – you can find previous interviews here!
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Ibele, himself a stop-motion animator (see AWN’s Fresh Takes piece on his whimsical short, The Silly Duck Wizard, deftly digs into all manner of topics, encouraging interviewees to share insights and opinions on a wide range of topics like pitching shows, marketing your work online, key skills studios look for when they bring on talent in storyboarding, vizdev, character design, and animation.
In 2018, Ibele, who lives in Toronto, decided to quit his career as a marketer and pursue his love for animation. Since then, he’s become well known for his viral animation productions, which include the previously mentioned Silly Duck Wizard, which is how AWN first came to know him and his work.
Learn more about Ibele’s work and podcast by visiting terryibele.com. You can find all of The Animation Podcast's episodes on his Soundcloud site: https://soundcloud.com/animation-podcast.
Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.
