Studio Spotlight: Sublimation, Inc.

Founded in 2011 by a team of passionate artists and now with more than 40 CGI projects to their name, Sublimation, Inc. uses all the power of LightWave to produce stunning 3D cel-shaded animations and game titles for a broad range of shows such as "Hirune Hime", "The Ancient Magus' Bride" and most recently "Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Love Warriors". Check out Sublimation's recent LightWave 3D works and get ready to be impressed by such unique talent!

Tokyo-based LightWave reseller D-Storm interviewed Mr. Atsushi Koishikawa, President of Sublimation, Inc. to learn more about their efforts to get new artists onboard.

 
Company History

The Sublimation Studio was founded in 2011 by the three primary members Mr. Koishikawa, Mr. Tsukamoto and Mr. Sugai with the foundation beginning inside the Production IG HQ's facility. With the help of four Production IG’s freelancers, the Sublimation Studio continued to grow and the team began to expand with the emergence of satellite studios outside of the main one. The Sublimation Company now has three studios across Japan located in Mikata, Nagoya and Sendai and has created more than 40 CGI projects. These projects include some of the most recognizable project names in animation such as "Hirune Hime", "The Ancient Magus' Bride" and most recently "Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Love Warriors".

Interview with Mr. Atsushi Koishikawa, President of Sublimation Studio:

We heard that you encountered challenges while growing your creative team. Could you please tell us about your efforts to get new artists onboard?

Basically, Sublimation is a generalist-oriented company so we ask the employees to be involved in the entire process: from modeling to setup, animation and compositing. In this way, we do not have a clear division of labor that is common in other CG production companies. Depending on the work, we may ask for only one specific process, but our basic workflow is that everyone is engaged in the full process to model, set up and animate. This way, we can have a very effective workflow: people are more efficient and this prevents us from wasting time and money.

In Japan, there are many CG related schools teaching games, VR, compositing … however, there are very few schools teaching cel-shaded animation and we have experience some challenges recruiting new people that have the full skillset that we require.

We started this project in Tokyo and we are now expanding it outside of Tokyo as well, such as Nagoya and Sendai cities. In the meantime, we have established our studios in those areas so we could give students an opportunity to get a job after their graduation. Since there is much less competition in these other cities than there is in Tokyo, we are hopeful that we may discover much more potential new talent for our studios. For students that are living in those areas, this might be a chance to work nearby their growing town as well as save on living cost.