Chris Garbutt

Hot dogs are a guilty pleasure for us at Paper Bicycle. Local hot dog hotspot Chris & Rob's sees us stop by more often than I should admit...



But a love of wienies isn't the only reason I love Pinky Malinky, an animation Chris Garbutt created for Cartoon Network Development Studio Europe.



Oh man, I would totally watch Pinky Malinky if it became a real TV show! The celebratory dance near the end is classic!

There's also a bunch of information, story boards and other cool behind-the-scenes stuff on his blog!

Carter Goodrich

I feel like it's been a while since we've posted some good old-fashioned illustration on the blog. Since it's Friday I think we can all use some comfort art (it's been a long week here at PB Studios).

You're probably aware of Carter Goodrich's work, he's done lots of editorial illustrations, including a ton of New Yorker covers, as well contributing characters and designs to a load of Pixar and Dreamworks animations.

He's got a load of art to check out on his new site; gorgeous, lush illustrations and piles of excellent sketches and concepts.









Definitely worth spending some time drooling over these...

Ruairi Robinson

I've been saving this post for a lazy Sunday, as a 12 minute video is a bit long for the workday, perhaps. But Ruairi Robinson's Blinky is pretty excellent.

Watch out, wimps! It starts out fun, but things quickly become... a bit creepy.



Also, I was surprised to see that I remembered Ruairi Robinson's previous work from a few years ago; The Silent City.

The Art of Disney Animation

I was sent this link from one of my students (thank you, Brianna!), and haven't been able to stop looking through this gallery. It's a French blog, so unless you're skilled in the language the words will remain a mystery, but the images more than make up for it.
It was really difficult picking images to post–there are so many good ones and I haven't even seen them all!

Game Deaths

Death has always been a part of video games. Older arcade games were designed to steal your quarters, and it was pretty much impossible not to die.

Here's a cute video of a whole bunch of death from old video games, set to a Midi rendition of Tears for Fears Mad World.



Let's all take a moment to reflect about days gone by.

Art of the Title

I love title sequences in movies. It's like a chance to put a self-contained little statement at the beginning of your movie and a lot of films make great use of that opportunity.

Ian Albinson, Founder and editor-in-chief of Art of the Title, put together this amazing collection of title sequences through the years, aptly called The Art of the Title Sequence.



Ahhh, the memories and good times come flooding back. Also, this video gets a big thumbs-up for using music by one of my favorite musicians, RJD2.

The Giants

The Giants is a series of animated shorts about 'the adventures of Giants and their conflicts with the humans.' And I love them so so much.

I can't seem to find out much about the pair that created these excellent movies, bseides that fact that they're named CéLine and Yann (probably). They do great work, however.

Not only is every frame a beautiful masterpiece worthy of framing, but the sound design by David Kamp is spot-on (and who also has a lot of nice work on his site).

Kim Holm

I remember when deer imagery was really cool. Then, a while later, it was kinda played out. Whether it's in or not, this music video, created by Kim Holm for Matta, rocks my face.

Graham Annable

Graham Annable's art and animation is unmistakable; the sketchy line work, bizarre humor and lingering, tension-filled static shots...

I recently introduced Lindsay to his work via the stellar Puzzle Agent, a puzzle-based, Fargo-inspired videogame. She's been a fan ever since (despite never being able to remember his name).

I saw via his Twitter that he just put up a new animation, The Smartest Dog in the World.



You can see all his animations on his youtube page.

On a side note, I was stoked to hear Telltale Games is continuing the Puzzle Agent series:



Perfect!

The Backwater Gospel

It's Sunday. Time for The Blackwater Gospel!

This stunningly cool animation was a final project from The Animation Workshop. Amazingly talented! Makes me want to weep!



Waaaah!

Psyop + Bambinomonkey + Kool Aid

Advertising is so incredibly slick these days. Take a look at this KoolAid ad Psyop did, for example.



There are three super cool ads in total, each for a different color/flavor. They all feature character designs by Bambinomonkey (aka Ignacio Fernandez Maroto).







You can see all three ads (along with more character studies) at Bambinomonkey's Behance page.

Compare that to what I remember about KoolAid, as a child of the eighties:





Hmmm. Maybe not that much has changed. They do share a similar sense of frenetic chaos.

Sword Shadow Dance

Sword Shadow Dance was produced for the Galaxy Theatre in Tokyo, Japan. It combines animation and projection with some sweet sword skills to create a totally unique and amazing performance that wouldn't be out of place in a crazy anime.

Dead Island

Warning: The video embedded in this post is gory and not suitable for everyone.

I first heard about Techland's Dead Island more than a year ago, maybe even two or three years ago. All I knew was that it's a game with lots of zombies and that it's set in some sort of tropical resort. Which obviously sounds quite cheesy. I kind of forgot about it immediately.

Out of nowhere, the official trailer came out and I was quite surprised by what I saw. What I expected to be a clichéd, action-heavy video game trailer was actually a very well done, and sad, 3 minute zombie story that rivals a lot of thoughtful horror movies.



P.S. I promise the next post will be extra cute and cheery.

Mollinex + Kinect

Just last night we almost bought a Kinect, the new motion sensor peripheral for Xbox 360. We had it in our hands; Lindsay was chomping at the bit to play some Dance Central.

But (being the nerd I am) I've followed all the hands-on impressions and coverage since it was launched and I don't think we have the proper space or lighting to make it work right. Although I wish I did.

As cool as Dance Central is, what hackers and modders have been doing with the hardware even cooler.

For instance, Mollinex created this video for their song,Catalina using the data pulled from Kinect's 3-D depth-sensing camera.



I might try to round up a lot of cool kinect hacks for a future post. There's a lot of cool stuff happening around that tech.

Annette Marnat

I could post a million pictures from Annette Marnat, a french animator and illustrator, but it should only take one to be utterly convinced to click the link...



Whaaa? So good! So click it!

Oh fine. Here's one more just because I know Lindsay and Francesca will flip out over how cute he is.

Song of the Sea

The Secret of Kells came out a few years ago and became one of my favorite animated things ever. If you haven't seen it, it's out on DVD (I think it may be available on Netflix, too) and you should most definitely watch it if you've got a penchant for pretty visuals.
I was delighted to see there is a short animated piece by the same studio on Youtube. It has nothing to do with Kells, but is gorgeous nonetheless.

Tangled: the Hair

Hair is a tricky thing. It can be tricky to draw in 2D, but in 3D? Way harder. And animating it in 3D? Super-duper hard.

It's come a long way though. I remember when it was a huge deal when Pixar's Monster Inc was courageous enough to feature a main character covered in fur. But Disney's Tangled, based on the story of Rapunzel, takes it way further, featuring a character with long (LONG), beautiful, flowing hair.

This snippet from the always-awesome Science Friday gives a little insight into the process of creating that awesome hair.



I should probably go see more movies.

Thought of You by Ryan Woodward

This is an amazing piece of animation by Ryan Woodward.



Visit the site for a little more insight into how it was made.

(thanks for the link Adam)

Saleman Pete / Meet Buck

I'm not sure how to introduce these videos because as far as I can tell, it's two separate small teams of people who just happen to share a website. I'm sure there's some story there, but whatever.

These animations are both totally, unrelentingly amazing.

ZEITGUISED

ZEITGUISED make strange and wonderful things. I'm not sure how or why, but it's great stuff.










Mind-boggling.