All Photos By Gail

Recently, The Fashion Institute of Technology hosted the 2017 MFA in Illustration Visual Thesis Exhibition, which was entitled 13 Stories.  It is while visiting the exhibit that I discovered a cool Pink Thing created by FIT student and MFA candidate Necdet Yilmaz, who is a native of Turkey.  Necdet’s visual thesis, Happy Tank, is a story about a little machine built for war that doesn’t want to fight. Happy Tank must be sent to war, but refuses to fire at a large building where a child is seen crying. For disobeying the order, Happy Tank is decommissioned and melted down. The story concludes with Happy Tank being recycled and used to construct a playground years after the war is over.

Screen Shots from Happy Tank Animated Film (Above and Below)

Necdet explains that this project “is related to my written thesis, War Themed Childrn’s Books and Propaganda. In wars, children are often affected and exploited as a propaganda tool. However, my project is in opposition to what I researched in my thesis. Personally, I am inspired to create these piece because of my background. My home country, Turkey, is located near the Middle East where there is constant war. This instability affects people in the region, like myself, economically, socially and psychologically.

“This body of work is executed in three different mediums: animation, print in the form of a children’s book and toy design. Using 3D software and animation for the first time while I was creating this work was an exciting challenge for me. I learned a lot about myself while discovering the intricacies of unfamiliar technologies. In particular, especially, when I created the animation I learned how designing three-dimensional characters, objects and environments, using different camera angles, lighting and sound in combination enhanced my creative skill.”

Given our political climate today, Happy Tank could be considered more relevant now than ever. You can see more projects by Necdet at his website, located at This Link.

Photographed in the Museum at FIT, Located on Seventh Avenue at 27th Street, as Part of the 13 Stories Exhibit, which is now Closed.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: 13 Stories, 3D Printing, Animation, Cartoon, Children's Book, Fashion Institute of Technology, Film, Happy Tank, Museum at FIT, Necdet Yilmaz, Pink Tank, Pink Thing of the Day, Student, Tank, War Themed Childrn's Books and Propaganda