It looks pretty sweet, and it doesn’t even showcase Kevin Conroy even though he and Tim Daly are in the movie. I’m still a little bummed that Hal Jordan will be in it rather than John Stewart, but I’ll live.

The end result is I need to re-render every frame with a ninja in it. This includes the Intro Animation, the first short, and the second. This isn’t a huge time drain, but it will take a day or two to get everything taken care of. Fortunately, I can set up a few renders and begin storyboarding the third short in the meantime.

Still, things are moving forward.

It’s tough not to love this shot – unless you hate ninjas. At which point, I’d wonder why you’re on this site at all. Anyway, once a few more shorts are in the can, the release of Ninja Tales will commence.

As for Ninja Tales, the second short is moving along. If all goes well, it should be complete early next week – then onto the next one. Below is a render from a few days ago.

Plenty more to come.

FOX has tried to create a formidable late night block on Saturdays for quite some time – particularly since the cancellation of Mad TV. If they have a similar budget for shows as Adult Swim, it will most likely be a financial success – even if it doesn’t pull in the same ratings as Saturday Night Live or other networks for the night. Of course, the quality of the shows will dictate the ratings; but the big question is how risque the material will be for the block. Shows like Archer, The Boondocks, or Venture Bros. might not get past the censors… even late on Saturday night – and that could be a concern to get it off the ground and running.

I enjoy the staging of the characters in this shot as well as their expressions. There are also a few nice small props that I like. This short is one of the longer Ninja Tales’ shorts. In fact, it is the second longest out of the 12 that have been written, clocking in around 90 seconds. Therefore, I expect it to take some time to complete this one.

Normally, I would be content sharing a screen grab with everybody and call it a post; but it’s the holidays, so here’s another present – the title of the first short… Taking Aim. That clears things up completely, doesn’t it? Of course not. You’ll just have to wait a few more weeks to watch it.

The background for this shot hasn’t been rendered out, yet – but I really I liked the staging of the characters. At the risk of jinxing things, there haven’t been any major setbacks thus far. Although, it’s still early on. Even though the first short is expected to be completed within a week or two, it won’t be released until after the New Year. The hope is to have a few shorts in the can prior to putting them up for everyone to ridicule… I mean enjoy.

Storyboarding is underway, and animation is about to begin. It still needs to be seen how much time will be required to complete each short, however the goal will be approximately 2 weeks for each one. Below is a preliminary background poster for one of the sets, created by Moridin:

I love the coloring as well as the font – and you can’t beat a Beastie Boys reference.

Overall, I’m pleased with how it came out. We’ll see if that changes after I step away from it for a day or two. In case you’re interested, here is the link to the video on Vimeo.

With respect to the rest of production, audio has been recorded and soon to be edited. Animation is set to begin shortly, and hopefully the shorts will begin getting rolled out in a few weeks. As expected, updates will follow.