Hey Hangry Crew,

We’re in a great creative flow this week, and it feels incredible to be deep into the animation process again. From rigging characters to building out environments and starting voice recordings; it’s all happening! Let’s dive into the details…

🎬 Back to Animating – It Feels Hangry Good

It’s been a while since we’ve been able to dedicate focused time to animation, but this week has been a turning point. Seeing the characters come to life is a reminder of why we started this project in the first place... to tell great stories with heart, humour, and a touch of Hangry chaos.

We’ve now set up the animation pipeline with our collaborators and started blocking out early scenes, focusing on key movements, camera angles, and environment interactions. The second rough animatic is in progress, and while it’s early days, it’s already giving us a glimpse of how dynamic and expressive these scenes will be. We've had some great advice and insights along the way from accomplished showrunners and Directors of children's animation shows on BBC as well as some indie film directors helping to put a stamp on the energy and feel of the Hangry Animals universe. It's feeling.... Well, Super Hangry.

🦓 Fresh Look at Zebrina

Zebrina’s back with some upgrades!

New Rig – We’ve fine-tuned her rig to give Hangry Andy and the other animators greater control over subtle facial expressions and extremes, to match her persona, to actors that inspired her creation. It's amazing how a voice influences a look, a glance, and that iconic grimace that Hangry Zebrina will be renowned for in the future!
Texture Painting – Her stripes and coat have been reworked to feel more natural, doubled in resolution for those dramatic closeups. Zebrina's hair has also been given a makeover, with vibrant highlights that match the Hangry Animals street cred attitude.
New Clothes – Zebrina’s outfit has had a complete refresh to reflect her character's personality and the overall brand style. After all, she's ex-military and prefers strong muted colours that reflect her hard-ass focus on getting stuff done with efficiency and ferocity.

She’s ready to step into the spotlight—and we’ll be showing off more of her in action with some test scenes!

🐞 Bugs Pooping from the Sky – Action Sequence Breakdown

We’ve also been having a blast working on some of the most complex sequences in the teaser... when the Bugs drop from the sky and wreak havoc.

We’ve been:
🚀 Animating them falling from space—complete with ragdoll-style impacts.
🏙 Setting up sequences where Bugs climb buildings and shake off debris after rough landings.
💥 Testing dynamic collisions and secondary animations to make sure every hit and stumble feels weighty and real.

We’ll have a full video breakdown coming soon, but here’s a quick sneak peek:

🎙 Voice Recordings Underway

We also hit a big milestone this week... voice recordings for our trailer have officially started!

Hearing the characters’ personalities come through the dialogue is hugely motivating. The casting process has been meticulous, but it’s paid off... we’re thrilled with the performances so far. There’s just one more key role to fill, and then we’ll be ready to dive into syncing the dialogue with the animation. Typically in animation, the voices get recorded first so we can animate the action to the performances given! This enables the animators to use the energy in each actor's voice to riff off and make the action come to life that much more.

🌍 Building the World – Bashkits & Scene Setups

To speed up production without sacrificing quality, we’ve been using a mix of:
🛠 Custom-built assets – Unique props and details that reflect the Hangry Animals world with a painterly look. We're deeply inspired by some recent great shows such as 'My Dad The Bounty Hunter' - Amazing look and performances.. especially the Blue Jelly Alien.

Also huge in shaping what we've been aiming for is 'The Bad Guys' film. The mix of 3D and Toon-like 2D effects is magical and has amazing energy throughout. The Shark played by Craig Robinson had us in stitches in his first scene... Magical stuff!

📦 Bashkits – Pre-made environmental pieces to help us quickly flesh out the background and set dressing have also been acquired. Building an entire world on a budget can be super taxing and therefore when you are bootstrapped, find and use what you can to bring the world to life and believable.

The combination allows us to focus on key details while getting scenes up and running faster. It's about balancing speed with style—and so far, it's working beautifully. We're reluctant to show too much too early on this one, but rest assured the Discord crew will see what we're creating first, for some validation before we push out the next wave of content.

🚀 What’s Next?

🔹 More character animation tests and 'pop throughs' we’ll be testing Zebrina’s full range of movement imminently.
🔹 Finalising the last voice-over role, it's a biggie, but gonna be worth it.
🔹 Reworking secondary animations on the Bugs to make sure every movement feels polished.
🔹 Animating a Giant slow-moving 'city destroying' bug, cos it's gonna be fun.
🔹 Preparing the 2nd teaser animatic for internal review, with voice artist performances in tow.

✨ Thanks for being part of the journey—we’re closer than ever to seeing this all come together. Stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes updates, and more game development content, and as always, stay Hangry!