May 31, 2012

WE CUT CORNERS - "The Male Mind" Animated by Rémy M. Larochelle

Marv Cards

Marv Cards are fantastic postcards, hand-painted, carefully stamped and snail-mailed by Marv Newland. Marv hopes the cancellation at point of mailing provides arbitrary enhancement of the artwork and stamps. Many Marv Cards are sent to friends, family and colleagues for communication purposes. These cards were sent to the artist strictly for artistic purposes.







See them all here.

The Light of Stars



Time lapse videos of the sky can be quite spectacular when they last long enough for stars, planets, aurora, and clouds to appear to move in just a few seconds. Pictured above, however, astrovideographer Daniel López not only treats us to several inspiring time lapse videos of the night sky, but shows us how he used sliders and motorized cranes to move the imaging cameras themselves, creating a thrilling three-dimensional sense of depth.

The video sequences were taken from Tenerife on the Canary Islands of Spain over the past two months, and show scenes including sunset shadows approaching Observatorio del Teide, the Milky Way shifting as the sky rotates, bright planets Venus and trailing Jupiter setting, a reddened Moon rising through differing layers of atmospheric refraction, the MAGIC gamma-ray telescopes slewing to observe a new source, and unusual foreground objects including conic Echium wildpretii plants, unusual rock formations, and a spider moving about its web. The video concludes by showing the Belt of Venus descending on Mt. Teide as the morning sun rises.

Video Credit & Copyright: Daniel López (El Cielo de Canarias); Music: La Busqueda de Ianna

May 30, 2012

"What To Do with CO2" by Daniel Gies



Montreal based artist Daniel Gies designed and animated this entire short with Photoshop and After Effects!

Executive Producers: Science Alberta Foundation
Narrator: Maxwell Glick
Childs Voice: Hoda Adra
Production Manager: Emily Page
Animation, Illustration, Editorial, Post Production: Daniel Gies
Sound Design and Music: Daniel Gies
Story and Script: Science Alberta, Emily Paige, Daniel Gies

"DIY UR CHINTAI" by Trunk Animation


Trunk Animation has just finished a new promo spot for Japanese property company Urban Renaissance. 

Working through IMPC Japan, Trunk’s brief was to show the creative process of turning a standard empty apartment into a cosy attractive home. This was to promote Urban Renaissance’s unique letting project, DIY Rental Apartments, in which new tenants can decorate their apartments in exchange for 3 months free rent.

Trunk’s Layla Atkinson and Rok Predin came up with the concept of creating a 3D apartment that is decorated as the camera pans around the living space. Before our eyes we see the decisions made by the tenants as they run through an eclectic mix of ideas to create a warm and welcoming home. Rough sketches of furniture turn into collages of photos taken from magazines and catalogues before the final piece is chosen and placed. 

Similarly walls are painted, wallpapers are chosen, rugs are laid, pictures are put up and accessories and incidentals are selected. Using this mixture of drawings, photographs and collage effects Trunk’s vibrant animation captures the wonderful and exciting process of a young couple decorating their new home. It perfectly captures Urban Renaissances desire for a promo spot that as Abe Masayuki from IMPC says “is fun and delightful to the viewers”.
 
The spot was animated and directed by Layla Atkinson and Rok Predin. Music was commissioned from Daniel Pemperton and the producer was Richard Barnett. The 3D apartment was created using Cinema 4D and the beautiful look and over all feel of the spot was created using after effects.

See more of their work here.

Character Design and Animation Process for 'Mushu' by Tom Bancroft




Pendleton Ward doing storyboards

May 25, 2012

The Art of Storyboarding with Ridley Scott

"Push It" - By DreamWorks Animators

Cartoon explains the Higgs boson



What is all this fuss about the Higgs boson? The physics community is abuzz that a fundamental particle expected by the largely successful Standard Model of particle physics may soon be found by the huge Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Europe. The term 'boson' refers to a type of fundamental particle with similarities to the photon, while Higgs refers to Peter Higgs, a physicist who among others published research predicting the mechanism through which such a particle might act. The above animated cartoon explains in humorous but impressive detail why the Higgs boson is expected, and one method that the Large Hadron Collider is using to find it. Although some rumors hint that preliminary traces of the Higgs boson are already being found, even not finding this unusual particle would open the door to a new fundamental understanding of how our universe works.

"Red Tide" by Jason Reicher

Tron: Uprsing - Pilot Episode