A message to you all
25th of October 2022
UPUNO has now closed. Please see below a message from the co-founders.
Our upuno journey began back in 2012, shortly after watching "Paranorman" by Laika Studios. Oh, what a movie! We both fell in love with every single bit of it. From the incredible photography, story-telling to the incredible technical details of the execution, which included cutting edge 3D printing. (If you haven't seen it, please go and watch it now!!!)
As a result, we started investigating if we could expand on our hobbies with our IT and Engineering existing knowledge, create the work-life balance we had been dreaming of and start something new. Upuno was then born in August 2013, full of inspiration, dreams and a desire to create something amazing in the stop motion field and have the life balance that would enable us to enjoy happier lives.
As part of this journey we had to learn and explore many new areas outside of our comfort zone, but we had a strong engineering background and a passion for creating something that would add value to animators around the world. We brought different variations of armatures to market as well as rigs. We brought as well an easy to animate head using cutting edge engineering design and 3D printing, creating a head and face that was easy to animate yet affordable for new and experienced animators.
We faced challenges with supplier lines after Brexit and we were not able to keep competitive pricing on armatures and rigs so we put all our focus on our exclusive head design and accesories. As COVID hit, our sales went up as many of our customers were stuck at home with time available to be creative. Like many, the lockdowns and illness took a toll on our mental health but we managed to continue, finding our strength in the inspiring work of our customers. Despite all this, the world continued to bring new challenges with new regulations, more complicated shipping to our European customers, higher costs on suppliers and couriers, higher energy bills, etc.
Despite our desire to continue, we had to make the extremely difficult decision that it was time to bring our upuno journey to an end. This has not been an easy step to take, with many months of debate on what else we could do. But it is the right thing to do at this time for us. After all, we only have one life and we need to make it a joyful one.
We are incredibly grateful to friends, family, customers and fans. You have provided us with encouragement and support all these years, which helped us move and overcome obstacles. You shared your enthusiasm as well as giving us great feedback in all our products and projects which helped us reassure that we were creating something really valuable as well as learning where we could improve.
We are also grateful to our competitors (yes, we are!). You showed us the way, you challenged us to be better, you made us check what we could do differently and we've been together in so many of our customers posts as they selected the best in each of us. It is an honour to have been part of our customer's creativity with you.
After these 9 years full of creativity, adventure, exploration and well, stress, pressures and difficult moments we say “see you later”. May our paths cross again soon!
Co-Founders of Upuno
