Project Thirty Three Album Covers

There are few things I enjoy in this world more than record album covers (my personal favorite). There are so many amazing works of art that can be found simply by visiting your local record store. I recently stumbled upon some retro designs from a local Seattle store called Jive Time Records. Enjoy.

Photo of the Day - Untitled

Untitled, a photo by 五泉散人|wuquan sanren on Flickr.

Canal Encuentro - Anuario 2011

Smooth animation package from Váscolo.



I perused their site and also found this little gem. Totally up my alley.

Mean Mug & Slim Episode 5

Well here it is finally, the 5th installment of Mean Mug & Slim. I know it is not being delivered on Sunday as promised, but give me a break, I am but one man. Still I am pleased with the result. I updated the look and I have been getting a lot better at animating the characters in general, such as having them do new things like run and change facial expressions. Along with the new look comes a few other things. I am trying to make the show a little less cute and lean more on the absurd and humorous side. Now don't get me wrong, the cute is what drives the relationship between Mean Mug & Slim. But cute doesn't get you remembered. So I am trying to up the ante a little bit with this episode. I am realizing the more I pull from my real life experiences with Lisa (Mean Mug), the better my episodes become and the more personality I can inject into the characters. Lastly, I did a lot more audio work to this episode than any before, so if you have headphones I suggest wearing them so you can hear all the little aspects of sound. The full background song is The Heart of the Cat by Ergo Phizmiz. Enjoy.

The 2011 Scheduler Squabble

I recently had the privilege of working on something that was just plain fun for work.  Our internal account managers are currently debating between using two new scheduler assistants, Tom's Planner and Microsoft Project.  To supplement the discussion and raise the energy a few guys and I put the following piece together.  As I said before it was a lot of fun because let's be honest, work work isn't always the most creative or exciting thing to do. But for this project we had no real parameters other than what our imaginations could come up with.  I animated the piece in After Effects through a series of Illustrator files that a coworker and I had designed.  Throw in some wonderful audio from another co-worker, Dave Ayling, and we have ourselves a finished piece.  I think the best part about this piece was recording the lively audio banter. It was a joy to animate to.

Mean Mug & Slim Promo

A new Mean Mug & Slim has been in the conception stage for a while and with the recent awesomeness from Animade Lernz I decided to finally buckle down and push out episode 5. To start I thought I would give Mean Mug and Slim some new clothes and update their look a little bit. I made some new walk cycles and decided to make a little promo for the new episode which will hopefully be coming out this Sunday. Yes I know this only gives me a day to create it, but Lisa (Mean Mug) will be out of town which should give me the time to complete such a task.

Animade Lernz

Animade is at it again. They are, as their name suggests, animating wizards. These two shorts are another example supporting this. They focus on one small aspect of animation, sarcastically demonstrate the incorrect way to execute it, and then wonderfully animate the correct way.  Although these videos are very quick they are still funny and allow enough time to actually learn something. Brilliantly crafted.

Photo of the Day - Lisa in Winter

Lisa in Winter, a photo by ChrisKoelsch on Flickr.

This one comes from yours truly. Lisa recently developed an old roll of black and white medium format film we shot. This little beauty was on there.

The 2011 Chicago Darkhorse Air Guitar Competition Intro

Created this intro animation for a short series of videos documenting the 2011 Chicago Darkhorse Air Guitar Competition. My fellow coworker and long time air guitarist, David Ayling will be cediting the final series. A link will be provided soon.

Apocalypse miau

SlurpTV is tickling all my soft spots today with this video. Retro graphics and cats, doesn't get much better than that.

To Do List

Playful little animation from Yaniv Fridman about what we should do more of and what we should all probably do a little less of. Lots of fluid transitions and interesting representations in this one.

Bulmers - Best Over Ice

The people over at Dirty Puppet made this slick ad for Bulmers.



I recommend checking out their site here. It's chock full of other goodies like the one below.

IMPACTIST

I was tipped off by a coworker about the amazing team of Kelly Meador and Daniel Elwing that make up IMPACTIST.  This directing duo with a diverse background in film production, design, animation, music, and the fine arts. Here are a couple of my favorite works from them, feel free to browse more at their site.

Phantom Calls

Phantom Calls is an identity and sales book for a fictional company that hires out ghosts to haunt people. Ghost have different skills and specialties and can also be hired for parties. Now although this doesn't exist in real like Katey Mangels has really made me wish it did.  I really enjoy her character style and mixture of photo real and illustrated elements. Check out more at her site here.

Jacques & Lise

Stumbled upon these two freelancer's work and website. I highly suggest you check out their site, it's a fun little design that is easy to explore.

Collapsing Cooling Towers

I love the use of real footage in the animated piece from Ecotricity — a company promising to change the way energy is made in the UK.

The Dungeon Manager

This idea came from Lisa mistaking DM for meaning Dungeon Manager. And as all nerds know it means Dungeon Master, but give her a break, it makes for a funny image.

Game Over

Hey you! Strap some audio ear muffs on your fat cranium and listen to this ear butter by Gioacchino Petronicce.

Two NEW Shirts - Learn to Macarena & Do it to it, Lars

To kick off this week I have two new shirts, and one is a very special movie quote shirt. You can buy them at the store here.

This first idea I came up with a while ago. I recently dusted it off, added the logo and decided it was t-shirt ready. It is called, Learn to Macarena.

The second shirt was a movie quote request from my girlfriend, Lisa. She has a soft spot for the movie Heavyweights. I really enjoyed the quote for design purposes. Inspiration came from one of my favorite t-shirt designs, Frankie Says Relax.

Jan Feliks Kallwejt

Soaking up some killer illustration from Jan Feliks Kallwejt. Check out the site here.