Carl Kleiner

Found some interesting photography from Carl Kleiner.  Just going to leave this here for now...

Man Up

I really love this piece by Ed Barrett from Animade. What I enjoy is that even though the style is simple the animation really brings a lot of life and personality into the characters. That mashed up with some great sound design makes for a brilliant little story.



P.S. Here is another little sample of what Animade can do called "Ready Steady Bang - 30 Ways." A simple idea but a lot of fun to watch, and if you really like it there is an iPhone game to go along with it. Check it out here.

Photo of the Day - *幻葬

*幻葬, a photo by **shutter-girl on Flickr.

Nicholas Felton

A co-worker turned me on to Nicholas Felton.  He does "annual reports" on his life each year.  Now I can't imagine how organized one would have to be to do this, but the end result is pretty impressive.  Nicholas tracks everything, and I mean everything. Travel, food intake, people talked to, etc. Then, when he has everything compiled he created some stunning visuals to go along with the data. Here is his report from 2007 as an example.

The Rabbit Stays in the Picture ~ Bench Monday ~ 172:365

The Rabbit Stays in the Picture ~ Bench Monday ~ 172:365, a photo by Bunny Spice on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
It's all about Ollie, isn't it? I accept that. He is an awesome rabbit.

I did a little consignment store shopping this weekend and picked up several sundresses in anticipation of my beach vacation. Ollie approves. HBM!

EDIT: Ollie and I are honored to be featured on the Flickr Blog, Your Best Shot 2011: Portraits without Faces! Thank you all so much!

Photo of the Day - 317::365

317::365, a photo by Adaiha on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
tunisian crochet (simple stitch)

blogged

Photo of the Day - Shed

shed, a photo by nigelrumsey on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
This guy wasn't too comfortable having his picture taken, but agreed just the same.

Porthgwiden, St. Ives, Cornwall

Holga 120gfn, Fuji Superia 400

www.nigelrumsey.com

Domino Party

I love the contrast of style and content that this piece from Ronda offers.  Many laughs to be had with this one. I definitely suggest checking out their wide portfolio of work for further inspiration.

Shine

This video from Jesse Blanchard is not all that it appears. I suggest you watch a little bit to find out what happens next...

Color Palettes.

While perusing Design Work Life I found these amazing maps created by Always With Honor for the MTV European Music Awards in Belfast.  I particularly love the simple color palette and the ability to render something so detailed with only 6 colors.

Photo of the Day - Untitled

Untitled, a photo by Hudson Gardner on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Lightbulb in lamp rightside up
Memory Bin ※ Slow Gospel ※ Rolls

The Holiday Claymation

We all know work can be draining sometimes.  Clients can be a real pain in the ass and start to suck all the creativity right out of your soul. I've seen it before, it's not pretty. So to counteract this, the guys at Root and I made our own little holiday card just for fun.  We themed it around Root's process but put a jolly holiday spin on it.  None of us had ever done a full fledged stop motion animation before so we wanted to challenge ourselves and make something really creative.  We did the whole process from creating the characters out of clay to editing the final piece.  It was truly a collaborative effort and a lot of fun. Happy Holidays to all!

Foster The People - Don't Stop

Pretty entertaining music video from DANIELS (these guys make a ton of awesome stuff so I suggest you follow the link). I personally love the album, Torches, from Foster the People so this is just icing on the cake baby.

Hotdog Hustle

The name says it all really. This is an extremely sophisticated animation from Thomas Hunter aka Mr. Buffalo.

12 Drawings a Day - 12 Dessins par Jour

A simply stunning piece of animation from Denis Chapon. For the past 3 years he has been drawing 12 frames of animation. This is the result. It's amazing to see what a little extra work each day can produce.

Photo of the Day - Untitled

., a photo by Ola Svensson on Flickr.

Hero

I really appreciate this piece for the sheer amount of time that must have been put into it.  I mean, come on, check out those sweeping shots.  That was no easy task my friend.  Enjoy the monotony of putting 3.2 million ink dots on a piece of paper.

VERSIS ✖ DIBIA$E - FLY ME T'THE MOON

Great little music video from RUFFMERCY for VERSIS.  Not only do I love the whole premise of an arcade game but the compositing in this piece is straight up insane; illustrator, video elements, and motion graphics. This piece has it all.

Photo of the Day - Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires, a photo by Monsieur ien-ien on Flickr.

Mean Mug & Slim: Episode 4

Now presenting, Mean Mug and Slim: Episode 4. In this nail biter Mean Mug asks the dreaded question, and Slim isn't quite ready to answer. Enjoy.

El Empleo / The Employment

Opusbou is an independent animation studio based in Argentina. It is led by Santiago Grasso. Their piece, The Employment won 102 awards.  I know this because they show you every one at the start of the piece. This made me wonder, "Is it really going to be that good." Well, after watching it I'm just going to say, you should watch it for yourself and find out.

Mo Mo Mo

Well as we all know Movember is over. Sad as it may be, I was extremely happy to shave off my terrible crustache. One good outcome of the month was this little video piece we made at my work. See, we weren't only growing mustache's because they look cool. We were also raising money and awareness for men's health, $3164.22 to be exact. Ok, enough jibber jabber. Roll the 'staches!

Charleston synced to Daft Punk

I'm sorry but I had to share this. Quite possibly one of my favorite videos ever.

Photo of the Day - car wash. boron, ca. 2011.

car wash. boron, ca. 2011., a photo by eyetwist on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
recently processed film. mamiya 6MF 50mm f/4 + kodak portra 160NC. lab: the icon, los angeles, ca. scan: epson V750. exif tags: filmtagger.


best viewed large

Animation Shamanimation

Over the past few days I have been working on a brand new Mean Mug and Slim with a new look and feel.  I guess the constant animating has led me to seek out other animations for inspiration. Here are three very different animations that are good for very different reasons.

This first piece, Composition in Red, is a short but sweet logo design for a production company called Tendril. Not only is the animation overall fluid and well executed but the sound design brings it to a whole new level.  Good sound design can really elevate a motion graphics piece to a new level.



Next is a piece by David de Rooij. Slim Pickings Fat Chances is more of a classic animation. This really brings me back to my childhood. Notice the classic animation style of using smears and multiples to create motion blur.



Lastly is a very stylized piece by Tom Haugomat & Bruno Mangyoku. Tribute to Drive utilizes its own style of flat color and hard edges to push the gritty nightlife theme.

Photo of the Day - Untitled

, a photo by old＊love on Flickr.

MGMT - All We Ever Wanted Was Everything

Another amazing piece of animation from oneedo.  These are the guys who brought you Apache, which was equally awesome. I love how they take simple 2D animation and use a series of layers to build an interesting composition.

the tinker toy sword

the tinker toy sword, a photo by henebry on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
sometimes he looks old and sometimes he looks young and sometimes he looks a little bit of both.
like here.

Amalgamation

Amalgamation
amal-gam-ation
1. a combination of different elements into a single body


motion : Micaël Reynaud, gplus.to/micael
portraits : Michael Jang, michaeljang.com
music : Memory Tapes, myspace.com/memorytapes
animated gif available, j.mp/amagamation
youtube 1080p version, youtu.be/5lugDrGlQTQ?hd=1
static portraits, j.mp/uKhLs3 (+ interview of M. Jang)

I Love You, Will Smith

I really do....and you better to. Watch this hilarious piece from Bradley Jackson to find out why.

Bunhouse Productions

Recently I uploaded the short video I made with my friends called "A Drug Deal Gone Bad." During the shoot that day my girlfriend, Lisa, had snapped a few shots of us with her Mamiya C330. This was my favorite shot in Danny B's creepy basement. My one hope is to never stop making movies with these fools, no matter how dumb they are.

The Bunhouse Productions crew starting from left: Kevin, Dusty, Chris (me), Danny B, Spike (not pictured)

Creating the Mean Mug & Slim Teaser

I have been wanting to create a 3rd episode of Mean Mug & Slim and really change it up. I thought the first two episodes were fine but they were a little cheesy and safe, I want to push the boundaries a bit and have some more fun. I also wanted to try and see if I can use video or photographs as a background instead of creating illustrated backgrounds. I figured this could look cool and also save me time in the production of an episode. So to complete this I knew I needed two things.

1. The illustrator file of Slim, broken out into individual layers and labeled appropriately (this is necessary for what I do in After Effects)

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2. A video for the background (but below is just a still image because you get the idea)

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The next step is to bring Slim into After Effects. When importing you want to select the option Composition - Retain Layer Sizes because this will keep all our layers exactly as we had them in Illustrator so our character is easy to animate.

Click to Enlarge

Next, parent the appropriate body parts (arms to torso), and use puppet pins to create bends in the limbs.

Click to Enlarge

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Now Slim is ready to animate. I kept the animation simple because this was only a test to see if the look would work.  So I placed Slim into a separate sequence with my video and masked out a section to hide him behind the table. The initial result looked pretty good!

Click to Enlarge

However there is a problem. My camera footage is shaky because it is hand held, and Slim doesn't stay in the same spot on the couch. Well to solve for this I simply motion tracked the position and rotation of my video and applied all keyframes to a Null layer named Null 1.  I then parented my Slim sequence to the Null 1 and everything was good to go again. In the end the motion gives the piece a realistic quality that I enjoy.

Click to Enlarge

Motion tracking rotation based on the corner of my table. Keeping the position and rotation points far apart is key.

Motion tracking position based on the red light of my video game controller. A high contrast area is key.

After this it's just about adding those little touches to really pull everything together. A simple title, shadows on the wall and under Slim for weight, and a color ramp with a lighten mode over everything to pump up the lighting.

Click to Enlarge

The final product came out as good as I could have hoped so I plan to go ahead with this process in the future. We will see if I run into any interesting problems as I do.

Losers

I really hate Everynone....and by hate I mean wish I could be them. I would love to work on a production like they do. They shoot video like photography in motion and their work always builds in excitement. Always fun to watch and this one is no different.

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON, TWO

Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate are the geniuses that brought us this wonderfully adorable character. This is part two of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On and I must say this episode had me smiling the whole time. Just a feel good short and there is nothing wrong with that.

Danny. Homeowner. Adult.

Growing up is weird to say the least.  Ever since I graduated college I feel as though I have been catapulted into adulthood. All of a sudden I have to be my brother's best man while all my friends are getting married and knocked up.  Needless to say I am ready for none of this. I think I will be immature just a while longer.
This brings us to Danny. Homeowner. Adult.

And with any great first home comes the first bar. Everyone has to start somewhere.

Revamp

It had to happen sooner or later. Might as well be now. You will notice everything got a lot bigger on this site. Well, bigger is better, especially when it comes to photo, video, and illustration. I want you guys to be able to notice all the little things that go into these works like I do, and to accomplish that I had to reformat my blog. So you might run into a few weird looking posts, but in the next few days I plan on fixing all the kinks. Enjoy the view!

Shorts

Here are some inspiring short animations I came across today. Each one is different but they are all memorable and fun.

Ray Prints by Blacklist

Cloud Rainbow by Nathan Love

ZeroFilm NYC Open by MK12

This 'n That does T-shirts

I'm hoping in the near future to begin creating my own, unique t-shirt designs and selling them individually.  I will post more when I actually start creating shirts, I'm planning for early next year. In the mean time I will be creating some designs for print. I find it only fitting for the first design to be a promotional one.

Pentax K1000

Yet another camera down. I like everyone better than the last. Now the only thing left is the mammoth Mamiya. I'm a little nervous but I think what I've learned with the other cameras will really help me out.

Brownie Starmite Camera Timelapse

Just last night I created my very first timelapse of an illustration. I have been wanting to do this for a while as a way to incorporate my illustration work into my reel. I think the result came out pretty good, although it took a lot longer than I had expected (3 hours). I hope people can watch this and get something out of it. I am in no way an Illustrator expert. I am mostly self taught so this is more or less an examination of my thought process as I try to figure out the best way to achieve the look I want. Enjoy.

Carpet Lines and Fireworks

Admittedly there is not a ton of stuff to do in Toledo, Ohio so we have to do with what we have. Below is a perfect example of that.

Photo of the Day - C.

C., a photo by thomaskrauss on Flickr.

A Drug Deal Gone Bad!

You heard it my friends. I think we all know what happens when the drug deal goes bad. This was shot and created in one day with the help of my very good friends. My buddy Dusty DeLelles shot and edited the piece and I displayed some amazing acting while also doing the sound editing. Much thanks to my friends Kevin and Danny for pitching in to act as well. Enjoy.

Monster Bash

As you know Grey Scale Gorilla's most recent 5 Second Project theme was "Monster Bash." While perusing the entries I came across this little gem....Definitely my favorite of the bunch.

Imperial Mark XII Flash

Whew, that's 2 cameras down in this little project I have. This time I decided to create the Imperial Mark XII Flash. I have pictures of 4 other cameras I plan on creating, and they only get harder from here on out. I think I will save the Mamiya C330 for last. I also plan on creating a time lapse of the work process that goes into illustrating one of these cameras, so keep looking for that.

I LOOK & MOVE

Very creative use of stop motion from Constantine Konovalov. I especially love the part where he falls out the window. It's nice to see something a little more experimental these days. I feel like I have been in a video rut lately and more drawn to animation and illustration for things I haven't seen.

Photo of the Day - Untitled

http://vanderbeat.tumblr.com/, a photo by van derbeat on Flickr.

Polaroid Puke

Polaroid Puke, a photo by ChrisKoelsch on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
www.threadless.com/submission/381580/Polaroid_Puke

Created in Adobe Illustrator

Silence Television - Gianmarco Magnani

The work Silence Television by Gianmarco Magnani contains some amazingly detailed and realistic illustrations. The work is clean and professional. Visit the site here to see more and buy prints.