Full Film link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXITjTEApzE

"Who is the Real Monster? A hunter kills for coin. A monster kills for blood. But what does a saint do to keep his people alive?"

"Ronin's Requiem: Grave Stalker," is a dark folklore-inspired 3D short animated film that subverts the classic monster hunter trope with Arcane Art style.

This is my very first attempt to make a full short film as someone who was a concept artist at the video game industry. I don't have an animation background, so I am learning as I go, from writing, texturing, animating, mocap, render to compositing, its all a huge learning curve for me.

Creator | Mingho Tong

Editor | Valentina Tuha

Key Cast | Harrison Dallura (Ronin)

Key Cast | JJ Robinson (Monk)

SPECIAL THANKS | Tom Dray · Fiona FM (Kappa) · Alan Lynch (Victim) · Monty Burgess (Old Peasant) · Robin Sharman

SPECIAL THANKS | Stylized Assets & VFX Toolkits powered by
BLENDER MARKET • UNREAL ENGINE MARKETPLACE • ARTSTATION MARKETPLACE | Motion Capture Technology & AI Tooling assisted by QUICKMAGIC • ELEVEN LABS • SEEDANCE 2.0

Special Thanks to all independent 3D Artists

About Ronin's Requiem: Grave Stalker Born from the desire to bridge concept illustration with 3D technology, this film is a visual experiment in Semi-Stylised and Semi-Realistic Style. As a AAA Video Game Concept Illustrator, I wanted to move away from hyper-realistic corporate aesthetics and create a world that feels like a living painting or a moving graphic novel.

Inspired by the visual language of Arcane and the visceral atmosphere of Predator: Killer of killers, and the Witcher type of stories. This short film was created entirely in Blender over a 3-4 months solo journey. As an independent content creator/filmmaker, I wanted to explore the boundaries of 2D/3D rendering and dark fantasy worldbuilding...

I used Character creator for the cha rigging and Iclone for animation, Blender for rendering in Evee, and photoshop to paint most of the diffuse textures to try to mimic the "Arcane Style", and use compositing to bring out the texture to pop more to be less 3D in the final Render, and then Davinci for the last color grading. It was taking much longer to make this film than expected because....you know, procrasination and all the render crashes and techniqual issues and learning....the film is not perfect cos animation is really hard lol. (Fyi only 2 seconds of a certain vfx scene was done by AI, cos I couldn't get the VFX to get the result I wanted in 3D :/)

Software: Blender, iClone, Marvelous Designer, QuickMagic (Mocap).
Style: Semi-realistic 3D, Hand-painted textures, Concept Art
Visual Philosophy: Emphasis on deliberate lighting contrasts and tactile weight over technical polish.

I am a professional Concept Illustrator from the AAA gaming industry. On this channel, I plan to share my journey of creating concept art style 3D cinematics, Blender tutorials, and behind-the-scenes looks at how to achieve a high-end "Arcane Painterly style" look in independent productions.

If you enjoy animated films, Blender animation, game cinematics, virtual production, and Samurai films, be sure to like, comment, and subscribe to my youtube for more original animated projects.
If you have any questions about the workflow or how I handled the texturing, feel free to ask here! I'll be replying to everyone.