On the heels of debuting new animated web series ‘Scottish Ninjas’ at VidCon 2012 and on YouTube.com/ScottishNinjas, Kirkland-based animation company, Sly Studios, has launched a Kickstarter campaign (www.scottishninjas.com/kickstarter) to raise additional production funding for the show.

“Scottish Ninjas” combines Kill Bill vol.1, Braveheart, and South Park into a tasty haggis of hacking, hewing and hilarity.

Co-creators Rob Mullin and Beau Obremski aim to produce over two hours worth of content for the first season of “Scottish Ninjas” using the funds raised from their Kickstarter campaign, which ends July 29.

Sly Studios has also signed with signed with the YouTube media company, Big Frame, which will provide audience development and monetization strategies. Headed by co-founder and head of talent, Sarah Penna, Big Frame will work with Sly Studios to create collaboration opportunities and help “Scottish Ninjas” further cultivate its fan base and social community.

As part of the agreement, “Scottish Ninjas” will also produce a year’s worth of content to air as part of the Big Frame network on the “Scottish Ninjas” YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/scottishninjas. Funding from the Kickstarter campaign will also support this effort.

“After our original 21-minute pilot screened as a selection in both iTVfest and Seattle’s MIFFF, we decided to take Scottish Ninjas to another platform and as a web series where we could better access audiences and maintain creative freedom,” said co-creator Beau Obremski. “We are excited to work with the Big Frame team as they’ve been incredibly supportive and sparked the opportunity for us to premiere at this year’s VidCon.”

Animation is the third most popular category on YouTube and Sly Studios hopes to ride that wave of popularity, as other animated programs on YouTube cross over to mainstream platforms. “Scottish Ninjas,” however, is more ambitious than the usual animated fare you find on YouTube given the use of full animation and serialized story telling.

“We’re writing full 21 minute episodes,” says co-creator Rob Mullin. “We then break those into mini-sodes that we release every two weeks. An eight-12 mini-sode run ends up being a complete story arc rather than the stand alone ‘shorts’ that we’ve been releasing up until now.”

“Scottish Ninjas” Season One will be available on DVD as a pledge perk of the Kickstarter campaign. Other pledge perks include story arcs written around a character designed by a campaign donator and the opportunity to earn a prop replica of the “Celtana Blade,” a sword used by one of the main characters.

Limited to only five, the sword is produced by Redmond-based “Punished Props”, operated by Bill Doran best known for his video came replicas, elaborate cosplay costumes, and podcast contributions to “The Morning Stream.”