Shan

Shop Fusion Collab - PaRappa the Rapper

There is a very big difference between pre-Shop Collab me and post-Shop Collab me. That difference is that I am now a huge backseat PaRappa fan LMAO.

I had the distinct honor of animating Morshu's ridiculous PaRappa rap sequence, making it a complete gameplay scenario to the best of my ability. I also edited the gameplay UI overlaying the rendered animation!

Prior to working on this section, I had never consumed any sort of PaRappa media. I immediately got to doing my research and studied the animation of PaRappa 1/2, as well as Um Jammer Lammy. It was then when I realized how fucking AWESOME this series is. I ended up falling in love with it, going as far as to watch the entirety of the PaRappa anime throughout the process of this animation. I would even watch it in the background while actively working on this section LOL.

But I digress. Work on this section started immediately after Nico and I had wrapped up with the Splatoon 3 section, meaning I had more than a baseline knowledge of Blender animation by this point. Using the reference gathered from PaRappa gameplay footage, I was tasked with animating a believable gameplay sequence to the rhythm of the section's vocals, lovingly crafted by ThisGreenDingo with a vocal performance by KoltJolt as PaRappa (who you may know from that one "i thlammed my penith in the car door" animation LOL)!

This was so. Much. Fun. I remember being so worried about the animations looking janky or broken due to the limitations of these rigs, but as I progressed I realized that the jank is what gives PaRappa its soul, and the only way to make it true to the source material is to embrace it.

(image from Nico's Twitter, once again showing his contributions to this section)