By: Paige Gibbs

Na'vi language creator Dr. Paul Frommer and James Cameron's "AVATAR" concept designer TyRuben Ellingson held seminars Jan. 2 for nearly 70 fans at OmatiCon, the community's first international virtual meetup hosted by Na'vi language community Kelutral.org.

The day-long convention celebrated the film with "AVATAR"-themed games, workshops and guest speakers utilizing Discord and Zoom. Virtual attendees spanned multiple time zones and many sessions were hosted in both German and English.

Ellingson hosted an informal Q&A regarding his time as a concept designer for "AVATAR." His vehicle designs eventually became the film's iconic A.M.P. suits and the larger-than-life dragon gunship. 

When asked how he felt having worked on a project as big as the "AVATAR" film, Ellingson spoke very highly of working with Cameron and the other designers. 

"It's bliss. It's kind of glorious bliss," Ellingson said. 

"I know that we can think about our life goals and we can think about the things we want to accomplish. And it's a struggle. It's a struggle for everyone who has dreams to go out and make them real. When you do finally find your way to getting your projects realized… for me to actually have that opportunity was like a dream come true."

Kaltxì ma frapo!

The official AVATAR account accidentally revealed, and then promptly deleted a Tweet announcing the next story from the AVATAR universe in comic form: AVATAR: The Next Shadow. From their Twitter:

According to the Tweet, the next entry in the Dark Horse comic series is set to release sometime in January of 2021 and will play a key role in filling the gap between the first film and AVATAR 2, which is known to follow Jake and Neytiri's family as they face new problems with the RDA and other Na'vi clans.

The choice to tell this story in particular is an interesting one. Although Jake successfully defended the Omatikaya from the RDA and was installed as Olo'eyktan, clan leader, by his former rival Tsu'tey in a deleted scene, his knowledge of Na'vi customs and inter-clan politics would be severely limited by his human heritage. The respect he earned as Toruk Makto does not necessarily make him qualified to be a clan leader.

With the history of delays surrounding AVATAR, we will hopefully find out how Jake's story progresses in January 2021.

Kaltxì ma frapo! Last week we received news that a Sign Language variant of the Na'vi language was being developed for the AVATAR sequels, so we reached out to Paul Frommer about his part in the development of the new language.

Paul's response answered our question directly.

We've reached out to CJ and hope to build the same relationship with him as we have Paul. We will update you with more information as it comes.

'ivong Navi!

Kaltxì ma frapo! Today we bring news from Jon Landau, a producer on the sequels, containing some concept art on the Crabsuit, which is a human-driven submersible owned and operated by the RDA.  

As you can see, it seems to be amphibious, and we at Kelutral.org have been hard at work theorizing as to what CET-OPS means!  Currently, we have the theory that it means Cetacean-Ops, coming from the biological infraorder for whales, Cetacea, but we want to hear your theories, so post them in the comments below!