A dolphin with glasses, an origami crane, and a trio of daruma dolls pop loose from a woman’s perfectly manicured fingernails in a stop-motion video that is created by TaiyoKikaku.
Made using 521 3D-printed nails, individually stuck and unstuck to a model’s fingers, Transforming captures “how it would be if your nails were revitalized,” as its cryptic project description reads. “Colors change as your hands move. Ideas come into shapes. Our nail art keeps transforming on your nails.”
Manicurist Hatsuki Furutani and director Mizuki Kawano created the animated short with the help of a support team of filmmakers, designers, and musicians. The process is documented in an equally charming behind the scenes video (below), featuring its own bits of stop-motion animation.
TaiyoKikaku isn’t just experimenting with the 3D printing of nails – but been on a manufacturing marathon, producing the fancy fingernail accouterments for trendsetting females – and seriously, intensely recording their progress. The company, based in Japan, is in fact so passionate about these nails that they’ve featured them in a short cinematographic wonder, ‘Transforming. TaiyoKikaku takes not only the art of film but also nail art to a new level. Using a real hand filmed frame to frame, and no computer graphics, the team shows us a fun and delectable collage of 3D printed nails from cute and colorful to adorned and avante-garde.
To 3D print the nails, the team used a Stratasys ProJet 660Pro, with the thinnest parts of the nails being only 0.56 mm. And yes, those nails were actually replaced one by one for the film.
Film Credits:
Planner/Director : Mizuki Kawano
Producer : Yuna Takayama
Manicurist : Hatsuki Furutani
Art Direction : Ema Mutoh
Visual Effects Producer : Mamoru Iizuka
Visual Effects Supervisor : Takeshi Ozaki
Digital Artist : Yuki Hirakawa,Mitsuhiro Azuma
Cinematographer : Ryo Uno
Lighting Designer : Masatsugu Tsuyama
Animator : Ayako Hiroki
Production Assistant : Takatoshi Taniguchi
Editer,Colorist : Masami Nikaido
Mixer : Akari Tatsumi
Mixer Assistant : Hitomi Abe
Music : Kana Yoshizawa
Contrabass : Hikaru Toho
Editor for Making?Minami Yahiro
