French Roast: A film by Fabrice O. Joubert

So much to enjoy here - deceptively simple in it's approach, this film has some of the finest attention to detail I've seen in some time.

The staging is refreshingly uncomplicated but suits the storytelling perfectly, using a tracking camera, reflections and cropped characters to great effect.

There's some great character design here, and there are subtleties in the animation that are easily missed at first glance; just look at the hands of the main character all the way through. The changes in the light as the day passes are beautifully rendered.

The cherry on the cake is the great score. There are links to the complete process in the production blog below...

• Website
• Watch the Film
• Production Blog

Mary and Max

A claymation production aimed squarely at an adult audience with a stellar hollywood voice cast? I'm all for more of this! The trailer sets this up really well, with the voice acting and visual style making for a very enticing prospect. Lots of interesting material on the website.

Meindbender Animation Studios

Something of the Spumko influence in the work of this studio? Good to see something nice and dark as an antidote to all the wholesome holiday sugariness about at the moment!

Psyop's UPS ads

New York based agency Psyop have produced a series of impressive spots for UPS. Corrugated cardboard cutouts animated in a faux stop-motion style form the basis of some very effective ads. The storytelling remains clear depsite the short time each spot has to get it's message accross - well worth a look at all of them.

• Happy Holiday
• Wild West
• Storm
• Circus
• Gladiator

My Cars reel by Pantural

Saw this a while back, it's now gained so much interest that it's even appeared on the Top Gear website.

At first I thought it would just be another shiny cars modelling demo but there's a lot more to it than that, and all done by the one person. No small task!

Becky - The cover girl of ImagineFX, issue 49 November 2009. Warren Louw (2D)

It's all in the pose!

Pencil Test Depot

For anyone interested in 2d pencil tests, this is a great blog. It has archived material from animation legends as well as links to new productions and individual artists. Well worth subscribing to.

http://www.penciltestdepot.com/

An example below:

CGS Production Focus: Batman Arkham Asylum

Interesting feature on a very well received game, some good conceptual insights.

Jesus 2000 (Gobelins)

Squashy, stretchy, pose-to-pose loveliness from Gobelins. Animated in Flash.

Mini Davey Jones (Pirates of the Carribean) by Tiago Hoisel

CGS Production Focus: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Production focus with shader writer Danny Dimian who also worked on Dreamworks' Surf's Up.

Line Art animation to Gigi D'Agostino's Bla Bla Bla

Cheers for this link Ricky! 2d Line art animation - to a beat. Haven't seen anything quite like it in a long while!

The Beatles: Rock Band, Opening Cinematic (Passion Pictures & director Pete Candeland)

Lavish mix of 2d, 3d, transitions, effects, huge cast of characters and great background art... this is the kind of work a studio can pull off with a huge budget and great direction! Director Pete Candeland recently collaborated on another spot with Passion Pictures for Coke Zero where you can see many of the same visual approaches.

Saloon - a VFS student film...

Listed purely because a cowboy on a rodeo bull machine animated to duelling banjoes just deserves a mention!

Nice little VFS student piece - perhaps not as refined as some of recent months but there was something about it that makes you smile a little...

http://www.thiagolm.com/Saloon/film.html

The Cat Piano, by People's Republic of Animation (PRA)

Great film-noir style in this 2d short by Australian studio People's Republic of Animation, blue and red hues on black backrounds with a use of transitions that harks back to the more trippy mgm Pink Panther segments of the 70's (this could be just me?) :) A very graphic style of animation; I'd never have placed the studio as Australian!

Animator spotlight: Peter Negy

I've always admired designers and artists who have a good grasp on different media, approaches and styles. This guy has some good character animation on his Vimeo page and an interesting back-catalogue of work in 2d animation.

Here's an example of his work from August's 11 Second Club competition.

Banish Headlice, 23 Lunes style!

Cracking lighting, shading, critter design and frantic animation in this headlice shampoo commercial from Spanish all-rounders 23 Lunes (www.23lunes.com - Translated link)

Visual FX: 100 Years of Inspiration

26 films that changed the world of visual effects. Some great breakdowns in a concise, interesting snapshot of how techniques have changed and evolved since the dawn of cinema.

8-bit trip

Worth posting for the hours of patience involved alone... 1500 hours of animating lego bricks. 2 million hits though... it's popular!

"Juiced and Jazzed" by Justin Weber

Here's a project clearly born from a love of early 2d animated classics. Well worth repeated viewings to check out all the little accents and details, beatiful piece of work with some wonderful animation in a style not revived in a long time!

• Watch Video
• Read Full Motionographer article
  

From the Author:
"We wanted to make a cartoon inspired by 1930s rubber-hose animation in the fashion of Max Fleicher’s Betty Boop, as well as having the polish and excitement of 1940s cartoons, à la Bob Clampett and Tex Avery."

Mouse Love, Jose Alves da Silva (3D)

I thought this image had great composition and real character in the posing and expressions. Click it for hi-res version and the title links to the CGS Forum where I found it posted.

Robin George's "Tezcatlipoca"

Good Tip Francesco, cheers! Beautiful cat animation and an ambitious 3 minute short. I know where I'm going if I need an animated leopard! Click the image for the online quicktime...

Capacity.tv: Upgrade + Mobilize promo

Stunning promo piece from Capacity.tv, mixing an illustrative Japanese style with some great transitions, sharp animation, graphics, vfx and sound design.

There are some interesting production breakdown images over on Motionographer too, with more to come on Capacity's own site. Well worth a look .

It's Evolution Baby by Matthew Weaver

Lovely fluid touches in the fight scene, this chap knows his onions!

Alexander Perry Design & Animation Reel

Great mix of typographic design, animation and distinctive original style from this guy

Jonathan Hagan Modelling Reel

Deviating from animation for a moment - I realy liked the way the production blueprints and pre-production work are included in this reel, an well constructed presentation of his environment modelling skills in effectively one shot.

Recommended by Kirill: Воцмуш "Деньги кончились" (Money Has Run Out)

All done by the one fella!

Friends?

Short from VFS student Sveinbjorn J. Tryggvason. This was posted a while ago but has gained some popularity and was back at the top of the CGS animation posts this morning.

Bertrand Avril site and reel

Nice website and reel from supinfocom student...

Red Rabbit, Short by Egmont Mayer.

Red Rabbit from Egmont Mayer on Vimeo.

Looks like a lot of work went into producing this short, well worth watching with some some really nice touches

George Longo site - nice inFamous promo.

This chap's worked on an interesting trailer for the game inFamous - nicely edited cuts from game footage into comic cells.

Francesco's Reel with Subtitles!

This may help us learn more Italian than the kind of potty-mouth stuff he teaches us at work... :)

The Cat's Meow

I quite like this one, from a Ringling student. Ricky - you were doing something with a cat, thought you might be interested!

This Side Up

The character has something of the style of Up's Carl Fredicksen, with his chunky square fingers. Nicely paced and an interesting well executed idea...

Alarm, short film by Mesai

I sent this round last week but worth posting here for reference - great lighting, rendering and style to this short (...well, at 8 mins, perhaps more a mini-feature!) I'm still not sure I agree with the comments about the pacing, but it's a matter of opinion!

Caterpillar ad for AMF

Beautifully made animation from The Mill. Animation, Lighting, texturing all spot on!

And the making of...

Evynd Earle & Open Season

Watching Sony's Open Season again last night, and reading the accompanying art book, several reverences are made to the paintings of Evind Earle, an American artist who worked on a lot of early Disney films. Well worth a some further research...

Energy Giant

Nice animation from swedish studio Fido
http://motionographer.com/theater/rwe-energy-giant/