Since last year, in the back of my mind I’ve had an idea about using the holo-mask combined with the spectrum to create a zoetrope style animation. There are a few difficult obstacles to overcome such as Mip-mapping quality reduction and the VTF conversion displacing important pixels, so for it to work it has to remain rudimentary.

This sticker animates in the sense that the eyes come to form out of a smoke cloud, and also below the title is the flashing glow of a bomb light through the smoke that flickers at intervals as a light source moves about the sticker. That was the initial impetus for the ninja master sticker, but I’ve expanded the idea into both paper and foil versions - which I actually like just as much.

The lettering is both custom drawn and haphazard. After drawing out the paths I took it into 3D to get a nice arced deformation. The eyes are mine - I’ve been fiddling with a wacom tablet to get more natural ink strokes, I’m getting use to it but its still a bit alien to me. I looked at old japanese woodblock illustration for the smoke shapes and tried to mimic a similar effect as it tied in with subject theme. I made the lattice work out of bamboo rods I had in the garden, and then colourised the images to look illustrative rather than real.

Let me know if you like!