Oten shimokawa biography of christopher

Shimokawa Oten(May 2, 1892 – May 26, 1973) was a Japanese artist regarded as a founding artist and pioneer of animation. Little is known about his early life, save that his family relocated to the Tokyo region when he was nine years old. He began working as a political cartoonist and manga series artist for Tokyo Puck Magazine.

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Tenkatsu Production Company engaged Shimokawa at 26 to make a short animated feature. Shimokawa employed numerous innovative animation techniques at the period, including sketching figures with chalk or white wax on a dark board backdrop, wiping out areas to be animated, and drawing with ink straight onto film, whiting out animated portions.

Celluloid cels (rather than current acetate film) were expensive and uncommon in Japan at the time, so they had to be imported. These methods reduce manufacturing costs, material expenses, and time to completion.

"Imokawa Mukuzo Genkanban no Maki&quo Oten Shimokawa (May 2, 1892 — March 26, 1973), Japanese ... TAF