Ryan Chen

Knot by Blood² (2026)

Animation

2026

Knot by Blood² (2026) is a 3D animated short film about an adoptive sibling duo that explore an abandoned apartment whilst also exploring their familial dynamic in a comedic lens

“I am Ryan Chen, a 3D generalist, meaning I deal with models, textures, occasionally animation, rigging, lighting, and VFX. I worked as a technical director and director of photography on the film Knot by Blood² (2026), a 4 minute 3D anime/animated film. Knot By Blood is about an adoptive sibling duo that explore an abandoned apartment whilst also exploring their familial dynamic in a comedic lens. The world that they inhabit draws inspiration from cyberpunk media, various short stories like Johnny Mnemonic and The Girl who was Plugged in, movies like Bladerunner, and videogames like Cyberpunk2077. The dystopian futurist setting ties into the themes of modern economic disparity in both our film and the media we referenced. To me this is an issue that resonates heavily with our current generation, and will continue to persist for the foreseeable future.Personally, I am quite distraught with the way our society treats artistry. The forces-at-be attempt to assimilate or overtake human creativity into a profit driven monotony. Of the things that we as people do in our lives, society has decided to reduce the ability to do the activity that many dream of doing, namely art as a whole.Knot By Blood is a testament to our desire to create. The mere difficulty of producing a film like this is indescribable. There are so many small details that you have to iron out, that you sewed into the fabric yourself. It is like conducting an orchestra while in free fall. The creation of a film like this in 7 months is at a pace that is outright unreasonable. However, thanks to strength of will and a carnal desire to tell our story, we pushed through.We made this film digitally using Maya, Redshift, and various other industry leading programs. The film itself was produced using a professionally focused pipeline, where assets, shots, comps, etc. are brought up in parallel and completed with minimal delay in utilization. This process allowed us to create a vivid and dynamic world. One that would be attractive for general audiences. Along with that is the aesthetic choice of a more eastern derived design for the characters, namely japanese anime. This and the comedic tone of the film is an attempt to appeal to the demographic that I and the director belong to.One of said anime is Milky Subway (2025), as well as internet production studios like Studio Wrong. These are the main two aesthetic and tonal influences of our film. The main takeaway that the audience should have from Knot by Blood² is a reminder to value your found family, the people that you may not be related to by blood, but find yourself linked in much of the same way.”