Home is a Quest (Onesize, for Warde)

Gorgeous fabric environments and characters by Kiwi motion graphics studio Onesize for Warde Source: Motionographer 

"Cenk" Character Reel: Inspiring facial rigging

Wow... some of the best facial deformation I think I've seen in a character. Lovely stuff...

Twinings "Sea" advertisement (Psyop)

Twinings "Sea" Sound design & mix by Raja Sehgal & Munzie Thind from GCRS on Vimeo.

Gorgeous spot for Twinings tea from Psyop, everything about this works really well. It seems to borrow heavily from a sequence in Studio AKA's short film Lost and Found, in itself no bad thing!

Paths of Hate (Platige Image)

Great short from the very distinctive production studio Platige Image.

http://www.itsartmag.com/features/pathofhate/
http://www.itsartmag.com/features/pathshatemo/

The Monk and the Monkey (Brendon Carroll)

Nice little short from some students at Ringling.



Breakdown:

Les Metiers: Le Boulanger

Some great character design here with some equally good animation - love the little details like the mass of the dough and the glow from the baking oven.

Kahani. Final Year student film (Meg Park)

From Cartoon Brew:

"Kahani is short film created by student Meg Park in her final year at Dundee’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design. Park definitely shows talent in color design, effects and pacing – in some ways her making-of video is more inspiring than the finished film."

Making of video here:


> Production Blog
> Personal Website

Between Bears (Eran Hilleli)

Beautiful abstract student piece, will update properly later.

Salesman Pete and the Amazing Stone, WIP...

This is so good it will make you feel nausious; a student project as polished as just about any fine studio short, one of those rare gems even during this spell of summer rich pickings. Check out the translated production blog here for more info and images.

The posterized colour palette has translated beatifully to the finished render for an almost 2d look. Cracking stuff.

View the rest of the WIP Here on Vimeo.

Walk Challenge 2010: Contest Winners (Spline Doctors)

Cheers for this Chris! Spline Doctors Walk Challenge 2010, the winners. Loving the disco guy at the end! Rub some funk on it...

Here's the link to the contest at splinedoctors.com - click here

Fly (Aardman)

Good little short from Aardman, a little different to what you might expect from them (self-funded project).

- Creative Review Article

Azureus Rising (Black Sun Entertainment)

Stylish piece from US studio Black Sun Entertainment.

**UPDATE**

More info here on Motionographer...

Coke "Quest" (Paranoid US)

Buck bring paint swatches to life for Sherwin-Williams

American studio Buck bring a great concept for paint manufacturer Serwin-Williams. Colour swatches are animated representing a range of environments and the creatures, houses and vehicles within. This ispart of a larger campaign, so we can look forward to a few more of these.

**UPDATE!**

Nice breakdown & interview on Motionographer.

2010 Oscar Nominations for Best Short Film

• The Lady and the Reaper - (Kandor Moon)
• Logorama - (H5)
• French Roast - (Pumkin Studio)
• Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death - (Aardman)
• Granny O'Grimm - (Brown Bag Films)

Cartoon Brew has links to watch all five online here. French Roast gets my vote, closely followed by The Lady and the Reaper (stills above) with it's unexpected highly stylized cuts and sense of chaotic, cartoony fun with some heart.

"A.D." teaser (directed by Ben Hibon)

Atmospheric little set-piece teaser for an upcoming animated zombie flick. This is directed by Ben Hibon who was also responsible for our own Heavenly Sword story animations, an excellent spot for MTV called Codehunters, and a host of other work you may be familiar with.

More from him here:
Stateless Films

Winter Olympics on the BBC (Studio AKA).

Something of a black and white theme forming this month, purely coincidentally! This is a great spot from Studio AKA for the Beeb's upcoming coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. It pits a lone Inuit agains the perils of the Canadian wilderness with only his skills in the events of the games to save his skin!

Great to see animation being embraced once again as a medium to promote TV coverage of sporting events, following on from the 2008 Olympics Monkey promo....

"The Sunny Side of the Street" (Soulcage)

Ricky reminded me of this old gem from German studio Soulcage. Lovely game-of-two-halves concept and great comical music and silent movie film treatment. The animation style suits the piece perfectly too.

• CGS "Making of" Article
• CGS Feature with links to the movie (May have to 'allow popup')
• Soulcage

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

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!