Skip to main content

Save the Tiger with GoAnimate's Super Rica and Rashy

Important Note: Since this article and animation
was published the number of Tigers in the wild
has been revised to 5574 (as of October 2023).
Source: World Animal Foundation
It's a surprising fact that there are actually more tigers in captivity than there are in the wild. It's not that wild tigers aren't prolific breeders the problem is that they're being hunted and their habitat is being destroyed faster than the tigers can cope with.

Some subspecies of the tiger, such as the South China Tiger, are already considered 'functionally extinct' - meaning they haven't been seen in the wild in over 25 years and therefore are most likely extinct.

I've always had a soft spot for charities like the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature a.k.a. World Wildlife Fund) so when GoAnimate launched it's Creating for a Cause competition I thought this was a great opportunity for me to actually support one of their projects.

2010 is the Chinese Year of the Tiger and the WWF is determined to double the number of tigers in the wild by the next Chinese Year of the Tiger in 2022. With an estimated 3200 tigers left in the wild it can be done since tigers generally give birth to 2-3 cubs every 2-2.5 years.

One way the WWF is raising money is through their Adopt a Tiger Program. This is what my animation focuses on with Paul Dini and Misty Lee's Super Rica and Rashy wanting to adopt a tiger of their own. My animation below draws a parallel between the big cats and Tasmanian Tigers that were also, largely hunted to extinction.

Save the Tiger - Super Rica & Rashy by etourist

The Tasmanian Tiger is a marsupial that was officially last seen in the wild in Tasmania in 1930 with the last known captive Tiger dying in 1936. Since then there have been thousands of unconfirmed sightings, some as recent as 2006 but for all intensive purposes the Tasmanian Tiger is functionally extinct. A victim of legal hunting (they were considered a threat to livestock and a bounty was placed on them by the Tasmanian government) and habitat loss.

Real Tigers are facing similar threats only they are being hunted illegally and being used to make Tiger products for sale in markets around the world.

As well their habitat is being eroded by logging and development - something else they have in common with the Tasmanian Tiger. Read more about Tiger threats.

All money raised by WWF will be used to:
  • establish and manage effective tiger conservation areas
  • reduce the poaching of tigers and their prey
  • eliminate the trade in tiger parts and products
  • create incentives that will encourage local communities and others to support tiger conservation
  • Build capacity for tiger conservation.
As far as GoAnimate's competition goes, if you're viewing this prior to April 14th, 2010 be sure to watch my animation above (and share it too). The final four animations with the most views will go into the running to win a Wacom Graphics Tablet and the winners charity will receive a donation of US$100 and two weeks advertising on GoAnimate's homepage.

Comments

Post a Comment

This blog is monitored by a real human. Generic or unrelated spam comments with links to sites of dubious relativity may be DELETED.

I welcome, read, and respond to genuine comments relating to each post. If your comment isn't that save me some time by not posting it.

Popular posts from this blog

Inochi2D - Free Open Source 2D VTuber Avatar Rigging and Puppeteering Software (Part 1)

Inochi2D Creator - Free Open Source VTuber Software. If you've been looking for a way to live perform as a 2D cartoon avatar on camera, whether it be for a live stream or for pre-recorded content like educational videos, then VTuber software is a low cost (or even no cost) option worth looking into. In my previous post, How to Become a VTuber - 2D and 3D Software for Creating and Controlling Your Avatar , I took a brief look at the relatively new but completely free and open source Inochi2D  which I thought showed great potential for my own needs of creating a live performance character rig for my own TET Avatar that I use for all my promotional materials. While it is possible to live perform my character using Cartoon Animator itself, Reallusion's MotionLive2D capture system isn't great - with lip sync in particular. More importantly though, I can't exactly teach people how to use Cartoon Animator if I'm using Cartoon Animator to control my Avatar. What is Inochi2D...

Learn Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 Fast by Creating Fun, 2D, Animated Christmas Holiday Messages - Free Course by The Lazy Animator

H ave you ever wanted to send your friends and family fun, 2D animated, holiday messages, or just create 2D animated characters that you can make move and talk without learning difficult to master animation skills or spending hours drawing frame by frame? Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 is a professional quality, 2D animation studio software that is also very easy to produce impressive results with, even if you've never animated before, or can't draw. Don't Have Cartoon Animator 5 Download a free, 30 day trial . Easy Beginner Course I've created a completely free beginners course that teaches you my fast, easy way to rig and animate your first 2D custom character in Cartoon Animator 5 without complicated templates or any drawing skills at all. My online video course includes everything you need, including eight AI generated character sprite graphics, and four AI generated Human voice samples, so you can start learning right away. Eight AI generated character image...

Krita AI Diffusion - Generative Image AI For Krita is Seriously Useful, Powerful and Free (If You Can Install it Locally)

Generative AI sequence of a woman in a business suit. From sketch to refined image using Krita AI Diffusion - by TET G enerative image AI, where you describe an image with a text prompt to an Artificial Intelligence model and it produces a new image based on your prompt, is gaining a strong hold as a tool for many artists. Krita AI Diffusion brings generative AI image tools right into your favourite free and opensource, graphics editor, Krita. Not only that, if you have a computer with decent specs (and at least 10GB of hard drive space), Krita AI Diffusion is completely free. What If I Don't Have a Powerful Computer? If you're in my situation, with a computer that was around before anyone in the mainstream had even heard of generative AI, you can still access Krita AI Diffusion for free, using a cloud based AI server, Interstice  and 300 tokens, to get you started. Once your initial tokens run out, purchase 5000 more for 10€ (approx US$11.00). Tokens never expire. I would...

Glif (Alpha) - Make Your Own Tiny AI Powered Niche Image Generator Apps

I  first heard about Glif through a YouTube video that mentioned you could get access to Flux Pro (the latest 'game changer AI' generative image model) through the site for free. While I had a vague notion from the video of what Glif was, I wasn't expecting it to be so easy to get started with, and so good with my very first results. Glif is an easy to use, low-code platform for creating tiny AI-powered generators called Glifs. While that may not sound inspiring, what Glifs allow you to do is create a tiny app that niches down to a specific type of AI generation that the user modifies with their own inputs. The best way to really understand is with an example.  My First Glif I've recently been using VivaGo's AI platform  (free and unlimited at the time of writing) to consistently generate full body characters in a front facing T-Pose that I can rig as front facing characters in Cartoon Animator. Unfortunately it can be a bit hit or miss maintaining the T-Pose part...

The Ultimate Independent Animator's App and Resource List - Animation and Video Life

Image created with Cartoon Animator 4. Being an independent animator is not like a studio animation job. There's so much more to do that is indirectly related to the actual task of animating. Over the years I've sought out many apps, tools, and services that can help me achieve that one single task, expressing myself through animation. Below is my Ultimate Independent Animator's Resource List for 2024 (last updated Oct 2024). It started out as a list of free or low cost apps that could help you in every stage of producing either 2D or 3D animation, and then just kind of grew from there. You may not have been looking for a Time Management App as much as you needed something to get you started in 3D animation but when those commissioned projects start coming in you'll have a head start on maximizing your time. All the apps and services on this list had to meet two main criteria: They had to be useful and relevant to an Indy Animator/artist. The base app/se...

Wonder Unit Storyboarder - Free Storyboarding Software for People Who Can (or Can't) Draw

Wonder Unit Storyboarder.  As an independent and solo animator I'm always tempted to try and skip storyboarding my animated shorts because they're usually only single scene sketch comedy type jokes. As a result I have many unfinished projects that kind of petered out due to having no clear finishing line. Storyboarding your productions, no matter how small, gives you a step by step guide of every shot that needs to be completed (no planning shots as you animate). It also allows you to create an animatic that gives you a rough preview of the finished production. In short, you shouldn't skip storyboards as they, generally, increase the chance of the project being completed. Disclaimer - I'm Not a Fan of Storyboarder Upfront, Wonder Unit's Storyboarder  is not my preferred storyboarding software. However it's completely free, has a number of very compelling featu...

LTX Studio (Beta): AI-Powered Visual Storytelling, From Script to Screen in One App.

LTX Studio can generate consistent characters across storyboard panels - even if one character is a dragon! W hile text to image, and text to video (and image to video) AI tend to be getting a lot of the press, the real exciting aspect of generative AI implementation is how it can be used to speed up creator workflow. Being able to realize your creative vision in a shorter length of time can lead to more ambitious projects. Particularly if you're a team of one, with a very limited budget, but you one day dream of creating your own epic animated feature film. LTX Studio (beta), a new 'all-in-one' AI film making tool, is not going to let you realize that dream from a single text prompt but, by bringing a bunch of generative AI technologies together, the developers have created a one platform workflow that can help anyone rapidly visualize and deliver a story from initial idea to finished film in days rather than weeks (depending upon how ambitious the project is). Even bette...