The aim of the game is; the player is a cyborg police dog that has been sent to rescue the presidents daughter who has been captured by some hostile droids and save the day by blasting your way through a series of levels. The trailer featured footage that was shot in Luxor, Egypt and the 3D scenery was modeled around that. The game itself was never put into production, this was just a simple modeling and animation exercise that got me some exposure in Computer Arts Magazine.

The brief for this character animation was set by the D&AD to portray a characters personality through animation within a time limit of between 10 and 60 seconds.

Lil’ Don Rapski is one of those kids who admires celebrity figures, particularly rappers with big personalities – he want’s to be just like them, and after watching his favourite TV show ‘Wanna Be a G’ he starts freestyle rapping about his day to day activities which include nothing more than toilet humor and misinterpreting hip hop slang. He obviously has a lot of growing up to do before his next music video!

The name Don Rapski came about from a dream that I had as a teenager when Method Man turned and said to his homie “Don’t you know who that is? That’s Don Rapski,” and the name just stuck in my head for years until I decided to bring the name and the character to life in this animation. You can also see how the Lil’ Don Rapski character was created by downloading these Illustrated storyboards which include FREE desktop wallpapers!

[flickrset id="72157621761076286" thumbnail="square" overlay="true" size="medium"]

For two months in summer 2008 a small student flat in Cardiff was transformed into a 24 hour creative studio where ideas, ink and the occasional DTox branded thong were thrown around. Lyrics constantly looped over and over embedding themselves deep into my brain along with the constant hum of MacBook fans working overtime as Pro Plus boxes and Lucozade bottles reached closer and closer to the ceiling. I wouldn’t have traded that moment for the world!

One of the main challenges was that the opening verse featured B.Yonest who lived in Columbus Ohio, USA and whether or not we would get the footage we needed began to worry us ever so slightly. But we love a challenge, and we love taking risks, and it just goes to show that in this technological age geography is no longer an issue when it comes to us getting the job done.

Mark Coleran (screen, interface, motion and graphic design for film and television) who has worked on visuals for films such as Bourne Ultimatum, Domino, The Island, Mr & Mrs Smith, AVP, Blade II, Tomb Raider and Deja Vu, said: “If I had to make any comment I would say that there are perhaps too many variations in styling and graphic looks throughout the promo. Selection of a few that worked well together might have made for a tighter look and feel. Overall though they were all executed superbly.”

From the start of the project we had decided that that was exactly what we wanted to do and although we had worked out a storyboard for the idea, developed the look and feel for each character, hand-created every single prop, from the detailed DTox hoodie, right down the the false teeth and even the Jigga’s cigar, it would be completely experimental throughout in terms of styling, effects and graphics. A range of varying styles and media would keep the audience guessing what’s coming next and keeps them interested throughout.

Mark James of the Ffresh Awards committee also made a comment that the DTox ‘Make You Cry’ video is: “Very strong visually from the start, captivating. Cutting edge design, direction and overall style. As a pop promo it’s at a very high standard. Excellent work.”