Reaper Won’t Co-operate in Fascinating Overwatch Stop-Motion Animation

Joe O'Brien

An Overwatch stop-motion animation with Reaper offers a quick and entertaining look at how such videos are created.

Blizzard animator Justin Rasch posted a stop-motion animation of Overwatch hero Reaper which shows him adjusting the props in order to create the animation.

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Rasch is an animator who has worked for Blizzard on the popular Overwatch animated shorts, but his most recent project was the “Trace & Bake” stop-motion animation for Overwatch’s second anniversary.

In Trace & Bake, figurines of Tracer and Reaper come to life when no-one’s watching, and Tracer dashes off to make a cake to celebrate the anniversary. As well as doing much of the animation work, Rasch directed the video and co-wrote it with his wife, with the pair even building the sets in their own house.

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Though the main video itself, along with a behind-the-scenes video that discussed how the video came about, was released in May, a more recent upload by Rasch himself gives a new perspective on how the animation is created with an extra clip of the Reaper model attempting to avoid returning to its box.

Part of this extra Reaper animation originally appeared at the end of the behind-the-scenes video for Trace & Bake, but as well as this version showing the full clip, it also demonstrates how it was animated, with clips of Rasch adjusting the model sped up to the speed of the final product.

REBOX_FINAL – OVERWATCH – BUTTON from jriggity on Vimeo.

About The Author

Joe O'Brien was a veteran esports and gaming journalist, with a passion and knowledge for almost every esport, ranging from Call of Duty, to League of Legends, to Overwatch. He joined Dexerto in 2015, as the company's first employee, and helped shape the coverage for years to come.