Interest
'OtaKing' Animator Also Makes 'Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team With More Realism'
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
Paul "OtaKing" Johnson, an English animator who creates "retro anime-styled 2D animation films," recently launched a Patreon campaign to cover living expenses and allow him to focus on projects. In addition to animating a Street Fighter fan film, Johnson is working on a tactics-based mecha film that he describes as "Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team with more realism." He began streaming a video on Tuesday that shows the project's current progress.
The animation project will be a full one-hour "space Vietnam tank combat" film. Johnson says in the video that the character-driven story has "No special moves. No hot-blooded power or friendship fueling the robots. They're more like tanks, and they use tactics and terrain-like tanks." Johnson begins describing the story in more detail around the 1:31 mark.
As of this article's posting, Johnson's Patreon campaign has surpassed its goal of US$609 per month. 187 patrons have pledged a total of US$660 per month. The funds raised will cover Johnson's "rent, basic groceries, internet, water/heating bills and council tax." Johnson may use excess funds to hire additional staff for projects and update hardware and software.
Patrons to the campaign will receive their names in the end credits for each project, Photoshop background files, TVPaint animation files, rough gif files, and exclusive live streams.
Johnson describes his Street Fighter project:
My current project is a 20 minute fan film based on the Street Fighter videogame series, in a similar visual vein to the 1994 animated movie: As with my previous projects, this will be painstakingly researched (each punch and combo will be game-accurate) and detailed to the source material, but also feature an added gritty “no plot armor” angle which raises the stakes and makes the glorious villain of M. Bison more dangerous than ever, as classic cast members Guile and Cammy (with plenty of armed backup) team up with new fan favourite Juri to kill gaming's most iconic end boss.
It will essentially be an exercise in over-the-top fight animation where I see just how much scenery I can destroy.
Last March, Johnson teased his latest fan animation inspired by the R-Type side-scrolling shoot-em-up arcade game from the late 1980s. Johnson's other previous projects include a Doctor Who fan-animated film and a Star Wars-inspired "TIE Fighter" short.
