• 2D Animator wanted for Japan visual novel (cute characte

    الإنجليزية

  • Erika

  • منشور رقم 1
  • هذا المنشور باللغة الإنجليزية

This is the project I was waiting for to be on spine!
I love cute manga characters and animating facial expressions, also doing some semi 3D stuff. Actually, I was going to do something similar as a personal/esoteric software project anyway, so why not do it for you if you'd like (:

My skills are:
I'm a good rigger, I'm experienced and I'm passionate about moe characters.
I can make programmers happy as I usually understand what they need, without sacrificing the visual part.
I'm organized, I can make assets for mobile.
if interested please add me on skype (erikari91) or write me at erikari ( at ) hotmail . it
(mails get removed otherwise)

I'm currently on another project and working for Esoteric Software part time, but please tell me your schedule and I'll see if I can make room in mine (:

Subject: 2D Animator wanted for Japan visual novel (cute characters)

Stellar wrote

Hi,

This is our first time posting on Esoteric Software's forum. A helpful guy over at Visionaire Studio recommended we stop by. Nice to meet everyone!

We are a Japan based game publisher working with a Japanese game company to develop a new visual novel series and we are looking for you, a 2D animator to join the team.

The play time for each game in the series will be about 2 hours long and feature around 3-5 onscreen characters. The game is a "typical" style visual novel where mostly female characters are standing static and facing the screen while talking with the game player. The focus for you will be on facial expressions... standing idle, talking, looking happy/sad/excited/angry, etc. Your mission will be to help us make the game players fall in love with the characters, by making the characters expressions as kawaii (cute) as possible!

If you think you have this kind of skill, please get in touch with us.

Looking forward,
-Stellar

Related Discussions
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  • SStellar

    • منشور رقم 2
    • هذا المنشور باللغة الإنجليزية

    Hi Erikari,

    Thanks for contacting me about the Networking post on Spine. It's nice to meet you.

    To let you know know a little more about us, we're the Japan side publishing company for a visual novel that was funded through Kickstarter called Libra of the Vampire Princess (kickstarter.com/projects/mikandijapan/libra-of-the-vampire-princess-visual-novel-english). We also helped produce Air Bonsai ( and I personally advised Bloody Chronicles (

    The project I posted about on the forum will also be done through crowdfunding. Right now we're in the pre-production phase and my main focus is making the budget.

    I was happy to read your message and catch the word "moe" in your reply. That's exactly what we need to make. I had a look at your portfolio and saw that you've created many different facial expressions for your characters. I know you said you wanted to try a Spine anime character, but I'm curious if you have anything similar that we could see? Also, how about rigging examples? Besides that, you mentioned you're working part-time for Esoteric Software... is that development work for Spine?

    To be honest, the first time I heard of Spine was last week. We will build this game on Visionaire Studio which will also be a first for us. Normally this game would be built on a professional Japanese engine like our clients other games, but their engine does not have mobile support and we want this new game to be on many platforms. We know the company behind emote (http://emote.mtwo.co.jp/) which is the technology we were planning on using to animate our characters, but getting it to work with Visionaire Studio doesn't sound easy. That's when a guy on the Visionaire Studio forum told me to check out Spine because it already works with VS. I've checked some tutorials and I saw how "skins" can be used which looks like a huge time saver, still I have no idea about development time and costs.

    I would like to share more details of our project, but I would need you to sign a confidentiality agreement first. Would that be acceptable? Then I can show you some examples of what we want to do and also send you a PSD that is an example of the layers that one of our Japanese artist created for one of our previous games.

    Here's my Skype too. I can sign on if you would like to chat: aaron.enterstellar

    BTW I tried to send you an email a couple of days ago but I noticed it bounced back.

    Thanks,
    Aaron

    • Erika

    • منشور رقم 3
    • هذا المنشور باللغة الإنجليزية

    Hello Aaron,

    Thank you for writing back to me.

    To let you know know a little more about us, we're the Japan side publishing company for a visual novel that was funded through Kickstarter called Libra of the Vampire Princess (kickstarter.com/projects/mikandijapan/libra-of-the-vampire-princess-visual-novel-english). We also helped produce Air Bonsai (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1280002828/air-bonsai-create-your-little-star) and I personally advised Bloody Chronicles (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/igrasilstudio/bloody-chronicles-visual-novel).

    Those projects look lovely, and the Air Bonsai is amazing! o.o I hope they all went well.

    I know you said you wanted to try a Spine anime character, but I'm curious if you have anything similar that we could see? Also, how about rigging examples?

    I can provide those, although they're not exactly in the same style you're going to send me, of course. They're confidential material in most cases so I can send you my open projects and a password protected video to see my other rigs. My best rigs are the ones I've made recently because I had the honor to be in a team of very skilled people. Visual novels are not something people produce here in Italy so unfortunately I don't have a good example of a visual novel character. I can rig one for you though.

    Besides that, you mentioned you're working part-time for Esoteric Software... is that development work for Spine?

    Yes, I'm helping developing new features, support people on the forums, and I will also start a new serie of tutorials for them. They love Japan as much as I do and they even opened the Japan forum recently, so that's why a cute character for them was in the plans.

    I've checked some tutorials and I saw how "skins" can be used which looks like a huge time saver, still I have no idea about development time and costs.

    I can be of help with that and organizing work efficiently for animation production if needed, since I know the Spine Editor well. Let me know if you're interested.

    I would like to share more details of our project, but I would need you to sign a confidentiality agreement first. Would that be acceptable? Then I can show you some examples of what we want to do and also send you a PSD that is an example of the layers that one of our Japanese artist created for one of our previous games.

    Sure, no problem, if you can send me the link I'll sign it.
    I hope I will be able to advise you for the best practices to use in the psds to have the least problems later on in Spine and make the workflow easier (:

    BTW I tried to send you an email a couple of days ago but I noticed it bounced back.

    It's very strange... I've added you on skype, I hope to hear from you soon (:

    Thanks,
    Erika

    • SStellar

      • منشور رقم 4
      • هذا المنشور باللغة الإنجليزية

      Hi Erika,

      Thanks for the reply. Can you provide your first name, last name, and address for the non disclosure? Once I have that, I can upload the file where you'll be able to sign it digitally.

      As far as work examples go, I would be happy to check your video and work samples if your employer is okay showing that.

      By the way, here's my email. I'll be able to respond quicker if we correspond that way: aaron (at) enterstellar (dot) jp.

      Thanks!
      Aaron