The Tale of How

The Tale of How from Shy the Sun on Vimeo.


“The Tale of How” is a short-animation of 4:30 minutes length made by three artists from South Africa in 2006; they are called The Blackheart Gang. It is their work of part times that taken 9 months to complete it. “Epic. Beautiful. Weird.” is the description given from the Bell Roberts website for The Tale of How. For this incredible animation, the Blackheart Gang used Photoshop, After Effects, Softimage XSI and also video from real life elements. Also, the art style they used is influenced by Bosch, Japanese Prints and Surrealists, via texture shading and 3D modeling. However, the visuals look more 2D animation rather than 3D, as this is what the Gang wanted. The music and the vocals are also distinct as the visual part and the sound more classical and operatic. In addition it won many awards, one of them is “The Special Distinction Award” at the Annecy Film Festival, which is the number one International competitive animation film festival.

The Tale of How is the second part of a trilogy of art works called the Dodo Trilogy and later it will be flanked by The Tale of Then and The Tale of When. The story is about an adventure the dodos had. Dodos are bird-like creatures. One day, in the Indian Ocean where the dodos live, a giant octopus with a tree on his head named Otto, wanted to devour all the dodos. Then a little white mouse named Eddie the Engineer appeared to save the day.