Nintendo today announced a partnership with animation studio, Aardman, which will see the makers of the Wallace & Gromit series of films produce twelve short animations in the run up to Christmas – using nothing but Flipnote Studio, available for free on Nintendo DSi.

Aardman produces feature films, television series and television commercials for both the domestic and international market. The studio has won over 400 international awards including 4 Oscars and is best known for its popular Wallace and Gromit characters.

Now Aardman has teamed up with Nintendo to give one of its rising stars, Tim Ruffle, free rein on Flipnote Studio, which launched across Europe on 14 August on Nintendo DSiWare.  Tim has produced 12 short and funny animations, and the first, ‘The Sandwich Twins’, will be available to view and download from the Flipnote Hatena site on 16th September.

The remaining 11 animations all feature unusual and fun characters created exclusively by Aardman for this partnership and will be available each week as they are released in the run up to Christmas.  Keep an eye on the Flipnote Hatena website for each new animation.

Flipnote Studio, which can be downloaded from the Nintendo DSi Shop for free, allows you to create short animated sketches called Flipnotes on your Nintendo DSi.  These can then be shared online via a special service accessible with the Nintendo DSi, called Flipnote Hatena.

Using the Flipnote Hatena with Nintendo Wi-Fi connection, you are free to trade, grade and save animations from all Flipnote Studio users. It is even possible to continue a Flipnote created by another user, meaning budding animators can team up to create an animation.

One single Flipnote animation can have hundreds of frames, meaning there is plenty of scope to get creative – but the software remains beautifully simple to use and no technical knowledge is required in order to create an animation.

The tools are very simple – a pen, eraser and paint brush, with three colours available: black, red and blue.  You can adjust the speed of the Flipnote, copy and paste pages or ‘frames’ and even import photos as black and white images from the Nintendo DSi Camera Album.  Use the Nintendo DSi’s microphone to record sounds for your Flipnote, such as music, speech or sound effects… Then you are ready to show and share your creation with your friends and family.