How can you deliver a speech that is universally understood without saying a single word?
The main challenge of this project was animating an iconic character, such as the Barbarian from Clash of Clans and Clash Royale, to deliver a speech to the world without using real words. The entire performance is based on invented phonemes, nonverbal language, strong acting, and clear silhouettes that communicate the Barbarian’s emotional state and intent at every moment of the speech. This character comes from a universe played by over 100 million players worldwide, which is absolutely mind-blowing.
Since this is one of the IP’s main characters, the goal was to create a solemn speech similar to what you might expect from a world leader, like Barack Obama or the King of the United Kingdom, but with the humor, tone, and visual style of the Clash universe.
The scale of the project was incredibly exciting. Clash Royale is my favorite video game, and this was also my first project with Gizmo Animation Studios, a company I’ve followed and admired for years. During the first few days, I felt a mix of excitement and self-imposed pressure to deliver my best work. Fortunately, the team was incredibly welcoming, which made the onboarding process smooth and allowed me to quickly start showing my workflow. The support from Director Ema Verruno, Animation Supervisor Fede Gimeno, and Project Manager “Pipi” Fuchs made everything much easier.
Gizmo did an amazing job recording video references with professional clowns trained to perform expressively without verbal language. This was extremely helpful, as their performances captured nuances that would be difficult to invent purely from imagination. I also recorded my own references for specific moments.
Once the cameras were established, we blocked the shot values for each scene, defined movement ranges, and then moved into the animation phase.
For the first animation passes, I worked in stepped mode to build strong blocking with clear poses, then transitioned to splines for the final polish on 1s.
