animation is SO hard and SO MUCH fun

Oh my god! It`s been so long since I posted something. The past month and a half was totally crazy! Today – hopefully – after an extremely hard work especially in the past week (full of a couple of sleepless nights) I am finishing my short movie for “Score” the EAM 2009 and presenting it in HD this Friday in MMZ Halle, Saale Germany. So sorry – this time you can be present only by invitation. 
It`s a very stylized and cute 2D classical animation animation but all in photoshop. Clean, clear and simple characters and storyline. I`ll get back to you on this later :). All my fellow students were split in groups of 3, 4 or more people working on a project. Although working with company is always a lot of fun - unfortunately I never got a chance to have a team… 

My movie was considered too simple. In the end it turned out that it really is not, but then there was no one left to join me... so I finished it all from the primary idea through clean up and inbetweening, animation until the credits. I really like how it turned out. 
I was feeling a little down but yesterday I happened to pop into the image above and the wonderful animation of Paul Postma from Christian Borstlap`s drawings. It was made just like referring to me in the current moment and made me feel so much better! Enjoy!
Got to run now – finish my credits and the sound …

Working hard

Maybe it is a little too much - please if you have a weak heart don`t watch! BUT - I think this* perfectly emphasizes the way I start feeling and will be feeling I guess in the following few weeks. There is not so much time left and the date for the final presentation of our projects is getting really really close. We are all kind of on the edge and working soooo hard...but still trying to keep it up!

*I absolutely love this GIF animation, but unfortunately couldn't find the author of it - so please if anyone knows tell me!

Recently I`ve been filling in my gapes of animation and cartoon related movies, so suggested by my friend Pako I watched "American splendor". 
It really made me think about the "nerd" issue as it has already came up in our conversations with some animator friends a couple of times earlier this year. What does really makes a nerd - nerd? And does the obsession of all of us working in the entertainment industry - with cartoons, animation movies and games makes us nerds? And if it is so - than do the nerds rule the world? 
And yet how cool is it too being a nerd?

Childhood memories

Here`s the thing.

I think life`s been treating me too well lately.

When I was a kid my parents used to have this double Pink Floyd vinyl album with “The wall” – the cover of which was absolutely gorgeous. I used to stare at the pictures on it for hours and hours. These images happened to be created by a fellow called Gerald Scarfe.

And luckily, this Sunday Gerald happened to open an exhibition here in Halle. How great is that. And what is even better is that my school has organized for my class a special private meeting with him early before the opening.

The exhibition was absolutely amazing and it was also super cool seeing some of the original storyboards of “The wall”.

Anyone who would like to – you can enjoy it until of November at Morizburg – Halle, Saale.

Doodle

a quick little doodle of my bored colegues in class

Hotel Dusk: Room 215

Maybe some of you already know it, but I just got to find out about this super cool game from 2006 for Nintendo – called “Hotel Dusk: Room 215”. A friend introduced it to me and I absolutely LOVED the style and gameplay – you can see some of  it here. The game uses rotoscoping to animate its characters while the backgrounds are 3D. 

Back to paper

I am so happy I got my first MOLESKINE! I was dreaming about it for some time, but I finally found the time to go and buy it.

If you wonder what`s so special about it - it is just that it is so cute, neat and has wonderful cotton paper pages.It is also very personal and super comfortable to use everywhere. Especially when you are traveling - to brief down your ideas and make some quick thumbnail sketches of people and things in cafe`s, airports, stations or anywhere outside. Or even finished art pieces! There is a whole society of "moleskine people" who use this little book to make tons of wonderful art. You can check it out here. Isn`t this great?

Using pencil and paper will always stay one of my prefered ways to draw.

In a way MOLESKINE could be something like the "old school" iPod :) Also 

Rumor has it that the old version of Moleskine was used by artists and thinkers like Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Bruce Chatwin.

So from now on I might also publish more "classic art" and sketches too from my moleskine pages - and let’s hope that someday they might become great ;)  

BORNSHORTS festival 2009

It`s officialn now!!! "My dirty little secret" was selected for the BORNSHORTS festival in Denmark! So if during your vacations Bornholm island in Denmark is on your way you could check it out!

Pitching day

                                                                                          photo by Okap

The day of truth has arrived :)!!! The day to reveal the efforts of the past few months working on our short animation movie projects at the EAM 2009 class. Everyone was sweating and very very nervous :) till it was over :))...and then we all drowned ourselves in beers to chill the tiredness which built up in the last two weeks constant 24/7 working. I must say that I really loved most of the projects and it would be a pleasure to work on any of them in the following months! The pitching was also great opportunity to receive really useful critiques from Tony Loeser, Quentin Bruns, Armin Völkers and Harald Siepermann . Thanks a lot! At the end we all voted and it was so pleasant to find out that my project was chosen for N1 both from the students and tutors voting!!! Thanks so much again guys!!! Huh, so the first pitching has passed, but it`s not really a relief - it`s more like we`ve worked so hard just to get started working even harder now... The full short will be presented on 6th of November here in Halle (Saale), Germany.

                                                                             my project "SCORE" that scored

Sizzling hot Barcelona

My first visit to Barcelona was planned for my birthday in January this year. And though it never happened when planned it happened now for my vacations in June. As they say better later than never ;)! Arriving from still and relaxed Germany BCN was a shock for me in the first moment. Also the trip was crazy planned - 3 friends (one of which hitchhiking trough Albania, Italy and France) arriving from 3 different countries trying to meet at one place :) SONAR was concurring with the time of our date - so I met some more friends... I was planning to look gorgeous but for bad luck at the very beginning of the first night out I stumbled and broke my high heels. So I had to walk BAREFOOT all over BCN till dawn :) I didn`t mind tough `cause I had a wonderful guide for the night - thank you very much ;)! For sure I can say I truly liked the city and actually didn`t felt like leaving at all /back to cold and rainy Germany/:)) but to see everything in 5 days was almost impossible! So needless to say I`d love to come back someday...soon I hope :)