Reflecting the last 10 years by David Kwok

2016 is coming to an end. It marks a significant milestone for us. Our company finally crossed the 10th year mark. Life as a CG Artist is never easy. It's a constant struggle between reality and passion. When I first started the company, my dream is to build a home for our artists. An environment that allow us to pursue our passion and make a living. A company that has heart for our crews and treat them like part of the family. This dream has brought us together. Many have joined us when they were fresh graduates and now they have became parents themselves. The friendship has united us to build a future for ourselves. We wanted to produce great works that make Singapore proud. That is why we called ourselves Tiny Island. (And if you look at our logo, you will see the Singapore map under the coconut tree.) 

Dream Defenders is part of Tiny Island effort to build our future and also defend our dream. CG Protege was setup to groom our own protege by passing them all we know in CG. Building this company has been a journey. It has taught me many valuable lessons in life. We started the company by maxing out 4 credit cards. Till today, we are still self sustainable and have not taken a single cent from any investors. When I first started, I thought we will end in 6 months. During down time, I was asking myself whether this is going to be our last month. Blessings, miracles, love and support from our families and most of all those who have been with us and those who are still with us have helped to conquer the impossibles. Reflecting the last 10 years, I couldn't believe we have gone this far.  Hope in 5 years time, we will reach our final milestone. Then my job is done and it's time to pass the torch to the next generation.  

Thank you everyone who has been in this journey with us or still with us in this journey. Without you, we wouldn't have reached 2017. Thanks for believing in the company. Thanks for being part of this family. Happy New Year. 2017

A Memorable Day

Thanks to our partner Presence Pictures and our crew for making this possible. 

Thank you for a great year! 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Before the line jams up, here wishing all our fans and friends a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

Happy Holidays!!

Shared Link: Cisco employs VR to dramatize cybersecurity threats

(Image source: www.campaignasia.com)

Together with our key partner Presence Pictures, working with Allison+Partners. Together we developed an interactive 3D Demo for Cisco. This marks our beginning business journey into the VR space.

To read more about this, click here!

Shared Link: Cisco Launches Virtual Reality Network Security Experience

(Image source: www.sgcybersecurity.com)

The VR experience was planned, scripted and developed by All Told, the integrated storytelling unit of Allison+Partners working with Singapore-based virtual reality studio Tiny Island Productions and Presence Pictures.

To read the full article, click here!

Visual Composition with Glenn Vilppu - 2 Days Master Class

CG PROTEGE is very honoured to welcome Glenn Vilppu to Singapore this December to share his knowledge in Visual Composition.

 

Participants learnt about fundamentals of visual organization for moving the eye through the picture to create an experience. Different types of composition was explained.

ABOUT GLENN VILPPU

Glenn Vilppu holds BFA and MFA degrees from Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles (currently located in Pasadena, CA). He is one of the premier figure drawing instructors to the Hollywood animation studios. He teaches figure drawing at the American Animation Institute, the Masters program of the UCLA Animation Department and has taught for Walt Disney Feature Animation, Warner Brothers Feature Animation, Ryhthm & Hues Studios, as well as Disney TV studios in Japan, Canada, and the Philippines. Vilppu has also worked in the Animation industry for 18 years as a layout, storyboard and presentation artist. His drawing manual and videos are being used worldwide as course materials for animation students.

A gift from Deputy Mayor of Cimahi

We received a gift from the Deputy Mayor of Cimahi Indonesia! 

Our CEO was interviewed by CNN Indonesia

Our CEO, David Kwok was very fortunate to be interviewed by CNN Indonesia today. David met up with many Indonesian animation startup in Indonesia. He must say that he really feels very touched by their dedication and determination. He hopes his interview will catch their government's attention to give more assistance to these companies in future.

To see a full version of the interview, click here! 

Shared Link: From Ngee Ann Poly to Hollywood

From Ngee Ann Poly to Hollywood: A Singaporean sheds light on working at Disney

Ever wondered what is it like working on some of Disney’s big animation movies such as Zootopia, Big Hero 6 and Frozen?

Lighting artist Roger Lee talks about his journey from Singapore to Burbank, playing Wreck-It-Ralph video games, and bringing five-year-old triplets to work.

To read more about this, click here !

ZBrush for Designers by Charlie Kim

Here is a picture of first day of class by Charlie Kim. If you are interested in taking this course, please visit our website at: http://www.cgprotege.com/ !!

Talking Tom and Friends - Epi 43

Here is another episode that our crews worked on. We are glad that our crews are given a chance to work on this! 

Watch full episode here! 

Talking Tom and Friends - Epi 42

Another fun episode of Talking Tom and Friends that our crew has worked on!

Watch the full version here.

Mike Yamada Master Class

15th and 16th of October 2016

We conducted a master class, having Mike Yamada as an instructor. He is a production designer at the Walt Disney Animation and illustrator for children's books. 

Talk at Binus Universtiy by David Kwok

23rd Sept 2016

I was invited for a talk on Changing Trends in Animation at BINUS Anggrek Campus Auditorium.

Talk at SAE Jakarta by David Kwok

22nd Sept 2016

I was invited to give a talk on Changing Trends in Animation Industry at SAT Jakarta. 

New Big Fish Dungeon Boss trailer

The new Big Fish Dungeon Boss trailer we worked on is finally out. Congratulations crews!

Visited nickelodeon for a meeting!

Thank you for attending to our workshop!

Thank you Cimahi Creative Association, Universitas Multimedia Nusantara, Dapoeranimas for all your support for our workshop (Entrepreneurship in Animation & IP Creations). Thank you all who has attended the event, especially those who has flown in from Malaysia and India. The workshop wouldn't be a success without you.
Hope this workshop will open a new chapter to your industry. See you at Baros in November.

Manimonki Studio in Jakarta

Honoured to be invited to Manimonki Studio.

(Left to Right) Founders of Manimonki, Dawn Animation, Gaga Studio and Tiny Island Productions.

Talk at Universitas Multimedia Nusantara

Our CEO, David Kwok had a live at Universitas Multimedia Nusantara regarding entrepreneurship in Animation & IP Creations.

Shared Post: Studio Ghibli Artworks at Polar Bear Gallery

Studio Ghibli fans, get excited: a selection of original celluloids from director Hayao Miyazaki are on permanent display at Polar Bear Gallery in Bugis, including scenes from My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Laputa: Castle in the Sky. Admire them alongside works by Japanese fantasy artist, Naohisa Inoue, who’s behind the surrealist background art forWhisper of the Heart, a Studio Ghibli film. If you’ve got some money to spare, prices start from around $6,000 for a Miyazaki film celluloid or an Inoue artwork.

To read more about this, click here

Career guidance at Bedok Green Secondary School

David Kwok, CEO of Tiny Island Productions, presented an industry outlook and giving career guidance at Bedok Green Secondary School.

Changing Trends in Animation Talk

David Kwok has conducted a Changing Trends in Animation Talk at the Tiny Island production.

To see more photos, click here! 

Storyboard Workshop by David Vu

One of our instructors, David Vu has taught in the Conversion of Storyboards: Moments to Frames Workshop.

To check out more photos, click here! 

Interview on BBC News

Our CEO, David Kwok was interviewed by BBC News. He is honoured to be given this kind of opportunity on BBC News this morning to give perspective of Asia Animation growth.

Watch the video below to catch the full interview! 

Happy National Day!

Happy National Day! 

from the Tiny Island Crews 

(Artwork by Steven Huang)

Our company's scholar, Aemilia's short film has been selected for the Student Academy Awards finalists!

Our company's scholar, Aemilia Widodo's short film, “Last Shot,” Ringling College of Art and Design has been selected for the Student Academy Awards finalists! Great job, Aemilia! 

http://www.oscars.org/news/2016-student-academy-awards-finalists-announced

Live VR

Our partner, Presence Picture has launched their new product - Live VR - at #Siggraph2016, Anaheim California!

IP / Merchandising Market Studies 1st Field Trip - Toys' R Us

This is our first field trip to Toys' R Us. A lecture on understanding of the key toy companies in Asia and North America. Learning the key dominating brand in the market. And also identifying new IP that has established themselves in the market.

The field trip seems effective. We will do this more in future.

A 360 render test done by Denny Iskandar

A 360 render test done by our staff, Denny Iskandar. Great job, Denny!

The Change of the Concept Design Workflow

Translating from the 2D Design to 3D is always a challenge for some designers. Especially for extreme organic designs.

In the past, concept artist will design on paper. The design is then passed down to the modeling department. The modeling department will then model base on the design given by extruding and cutting the polygons, ensuring the topology runs properly. It is a very tedious process.

New concept artist always has this problem. Their front and side views of the design don't match each other. This results in giving the modeler a hard time visualizing how it looks in a 3D space, after the Art Director sees it. Only then he realises how it looks like in 3D. It might ended up not being what he expected when he approves the design in 2D. Hence, he will probably have to go back to the Concept Designer to make changes. Then the process repeats itself. Going back and forth. Extruding and cutting the polygons, ensuring the topology is right etc. Very tedious.

For studio with bigger budget, some has the budget to hire a physical sculptor. Their job is to sculpt a maquette base on the design to help translate the 2D design to 3D with the maquette. This helps the modeler to visualise better. So that he/she can model in 3D. However, not everyone has the budget.

As you can see, in the above pipeline, it can get quite tedious and frustrating. With Z brush getting more and more powerful these days, the pipeline has changed. Now the designer can do a rough sketch on paper. Focus on the form. He will then bring the design process into Zbrush. This replaces the physical maquette process. In Z brush these days, you can not only model organic objects but also hard surface object as well. You can easily add skin shader, fur, light etc to help the Art Director better visualise in 3D. This becomes a more effective pipeline, minimizing the going back and forth between the art and modeling department. Once all these are done, the Zbrush model will be passed over to the modeling department to re-construct the topology. In this way, it increases the productivity.

For more information about our program, contact: admin@cgprotege.com

Learning Journey in collaboration with MaterialiseIT

We are hosting Pei Hwa Secondary School students on their "Learning Journey" about the animation industry, in collaboration with MaterialiseIT.

Happy 4th!