Strawberry Swing - coldplay

Strawberry swing is a stop motion, pixilation done on a pavement creating the illusion of a guy moving and interacting with his chalked surroundings. The crispness of the background is beautiful, making me wonder how they re-drew each frame without leaving left over smudge marks in the background. The artwork its self is beautiful full of colour, making the mane character appear to fly adding to the narrative in this full on superhero story told throughout. props are also used to interact with the background also with beautiful costume design creating a very light hearted feel to the story, mixing all kinds of shots used in cinema when drawing the scene within the animation.

Paranoid Android - Radiohead

This animated music video for radio head appeals to me because of its colour and style most of all. It had a very 90's feel, following a very similar style to a lot of animations in the 90s that i related to as a kid. The video tells a story along side the song, linking them together and making sense of the lyrics used. It uses bold bright colours, mostly animated on a computer. The shots are also really lovely, at 4:21 there is the shop of the boy sitting on the post from above giving perspective, along with the over exaggerated movements, making it seem very surreal.

Belly - Julia Pott

The artist Julia Pott talks about family bonds in this and her own inner struggles, through strange, awkward characters. To me it is something i can relate to, like how we find something or someone to lover and trust like a toy and loosing that one thing that is close to you. The style is very illustrated with a mix of clean cut shapes and styles with a mix or rough hand drawn textures. The way the characters sink and morphs really appeals to me. the layers and shapes used create a very space like world. I love the rough feel of the work, to me making it feel very personal, although certain aspects would appeal to me more if it was slightly softer or alot more rough in a hand drawn sense rather then fitting some place in the middle of the two.

Freeview Advert

I recently saw this advert for free view on the tv, i love the crisp cgi animation, and the simplistic idea behind it, about how entertainment doesn't always have to cost money. Along with making something like a tadpole seems enticing to just sit and watch, appealing to viewers childhood and how fascinating things can often appear. the movements within the animation, making the tadpoles dance with one another like a ballet under a pond. i especially like the character design of the fish and more so the pond, with detail in all aspects including the shopping trolly pulling in the more urban environment and making it look picturesque still. even the lighting hitting the plants and floor of the pond, bouncing off the moments within the animation.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - Blu

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Big bang big boom along with a few of Blu's other animations, and graffiti work is one of my favourite animations at the moment. One of the main reasons is probably because of the time put into it and the vast use of medias and techniques mixing stop motion with pixilation. The animation travels through a very urban environment using a mixture of spray paint and found materials to create the stop motion and movement, constantly changing in scale throughout. Blu is an a graffiti artist and animator who likes to let his work speak its self. Some pieces seem to have very little meaning where as pieces like this seem to have more to it about how beautiful the creation of it all may have been and how in a short time we are already destroying our own planet.

The sound without this animation is also beautifully composed for the video, helping emphasise the characters, movements and actions within the animation. building it up, going hand in hand with his work.

Cut out flipbook - Matt Shilan

Although its a short and very simple flip book, the movement in it is so crisp and smooth you could just imagine it repeating over and over. With a real 3 dimensional look about it making it pop out of the book. Although unlike most flip books that we know the artist Matt Shilan seemed to use separate sheets of tracing paper which im sure made creating the movement a lot easier.

Stanley Pickle - Vicky Mather

When i started exploring the world of pixilation, i came across this short film, with a very sad end.
The lighting for a start is beautiful, how it stays constant throughout the shots, and the tracking through with the camera. A mixture of techniques were also used thorough, including CGI on the bird, house and other aspects. pixilation was even used in this when showing the kettle boiling to keep with the jaggardy movement giving the characters a robotic like movement which fits well with the story line as it shows a clockwork like life.

The sound effect and music help pull it together, starting off very sweet and happy but leading to a tragic end to the story. even the bubbling and walking noises help emphasise each movement and action in the story. each action is over exaggerated, and the pixilation technique allows smooth movement as if skating or sliding through the grass.

http://stanleypicklemovie.com

The Eagleman Stag - Mikey Please

THE EAGLEMAN STAG from Mikey Please on Vimeo.

This Animation is hand crafted using white paper, foam board and other materials, the one constant thing is that everything is white making the lighting look incredible and almost impossible to duplicate. How he managed to get the lighting right and the detail in this blows my mind. The expressions on the faces are done in the editing process using computer animation to help add the personality and mood to the characters within. The animation is about how life seems to speed up as you age, making each minuet shorter, and how the main character has managed to find a possible cure in a small beetle he named the Eagleman stag. Mikey Please has managed to show a whole lifetime within a short animation.

115 handcrafted sets are used throughout the whole animation, each full of detail. Mikey Please is an independent animator who managed to show such christ smooth movement throughout the short film, having a beautiful score composed by his brother and the actor David Cann voicing the character. 

www.mikeyplease.co.uk

Photoshop animation

Here i attempted to make a ball bounce down a hill using squash and stretch. In the future i need to work out how to create a realistic, fixed backdrop, or to get multiple things interacting with each other within the animation.

my across the screen squash and stretch was my first attempt at photoshop animation using the squash and stretch technique.i feel it worked well although the ball should bounce higher in the middle bounce and i think the last squash is to much for the impact.

Here i did a ball moving across the screen to get used to the movement in photo shop as i had never done it before. I did not use squash and stretch here which makes the ball look pretty lifeless.

Pendulum one, didn't work all to well. This was my first attempt at doing arcs, and as you can see i got confused by the string of the pendulum. Also it flips over which makes little sense.. because of this i had a second go using a simpler pendulum.

Pendulum two, more effective movement using the arc rule here, also the speed feels more real with this gif then the other pendulum.

first use of a graphics tablet in photoshop, trying manipulation and other techniques.

First attempt at doing a drawing using a graphics tablet, experimenting with the different brush strokes that can be used. I found it hard to get used to the texture, and could not get the hang of colouring in. In many ways it was also alot easier to draw and get the shapes right, as also erasing mistakes was alot simpler.

Here we tried manipulation of a picture, which i found quite difficult as photoshop and me have never got along. was reminded of alot of old techniques and realised i just need alot of practice! I flipped the image of wall-e here and jazzed him up a bit by taking sections from the image, copying them and moving them around. i learnt how to add opacity to the image adding depth to the repeated wall-e on the right. 

I tried to draw another character using colour, Dont ask me why an ant.. in my head i felt it was relevant. It slightly worked, the colours i think look nice but need practice if i want to get it right when drawing more detailed things. i just went a bit crazy with the colours and teeth etc ruining my little guy a tad.

I attempted to add the ant to the image but struggled a lot as i could not work out at the time how to change the size or the proportions of the ant, let alone add shadows!

But i did manage to add some starts