Germans in the Woods

In honour of Remembrance Day / Veterans Day, Rauch Brothers Animation has posted Germans in the Woods. The animated documentary illustrates a recording of WWII veteran Joseph Robertson who is haunted by the memory of killing a young German soldier during the Battle of the Buldge. The short was created with Photoshop, AfterEffects, and scanned pencil drawings.

WIP: Work In Progress

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Work In Progress is a blog that shows comics pages coming to life from initial sketches to finished piece, with various stages in between. The images are all in Flash, and we see them blend seamlessly into each other, which makes for an interesting effect. The blog is in Spanish, but you certainly don’t need to be able to read any of the words to appreciate the work here.

Shown here, the work of Enrique Fernández.

Tommy Kane draws Lebanon

In this video artist Tommy Kane combines video diary with travel sketchbook as we follow him through the streets of Beirut, Lebanon to watch him draw.

Jamie Tanner’s unusual comic book business model

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Jamie Tanner (The Aviary, Adhouse Books) is asking people to pledge money up-front to help fund his next graphic novel. Pledges of 50 bucks or more get a page of original art. So far he’s raised over $6k.

Interesting…

Check out the rest of Jamie’s short comic , The Squid (above), over at the Kickstarter blog.

Also:

The Aviary [Amazon Link]

Robin Yangge: “dreaming in the wonderland”

Each time a new image by Robin Yangge appears in the thumbnail previews for my Flickr contacts I know I will be transported to – not Max’s island where the Wild Things are – but perhaps some other, nearby island… one populated by Cyclopean trees, anthropomorphic animals and beautiful cherubic girl-women with huge almond shaped eyes.

The prolific Chinese artist has a massive gallery of gorgeous artwork as Robinart on Flickr

Robin Yangge’s website

Paul Rogers’s Name That Movie

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Love love love. Paul Rogers’s Name That Movie series. With brilliant simplicity and use of black and white, they are like little movie haikus.

And note how he achieves his blacks here. The drawings themselves are simple line drawings without any blacks; the contrasted areas appear to just be selections in Photoshop, inverted digitally. Deceptively simple, and highly effective.

Paul writes:

I started a series of drawings in my sketchbook, it’s a kind of visual quiz of great movies. Each series is a sequence of six drawings of shots from classic films (in the order they appear on screen.) No portraits of movie stars, just iconic images from the film. When I finish 100 movies, I’ll see about getting them published as a book. A book like this could sell dozens.

I will be first in line to buy such a book.

(via Austin Kleon)

An interview with Fantastic Mr. Fox storyboard artist Christian DeVita

I had the chance to interview OneHandClapping’s Christian DeVita, the lead storyboard artist for Wes Anderson’s stop motion adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. Here is the interview, along with several of Christian’s storyboards, sketches, and even some of director Wes Anderson’s thumbnails.

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Drawn!: Tell me a little about your involvement in the production of Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Christian DeVita: I was the lead storyboard artist on the movie. I was drafted in early in the production (Sep 2007) along with other 6 artists.

We went through a few passes of the scenes, based on some thumbnails that Wes drew, before he decided he wanted to work closely with one of us in Paris. The animation studio and sets were in East London’s Three Mills studios.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jugend magazine gallery

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How much more fabulous can it get? There’s a whole website devoted to the magazine Jugend (19th century and early 20th century), with galleries of covers, ads, and histories.

Mitchell Hooks’ Fabulous 50’s Paperback Covers

Until the mid-1950’s paperback covers tended to be illustrated in a very ‘literal’ style. Then along came a young artist named Mitchell Hooks.

In the mid-’50s Mitch (and a few others) revolutionized the look of paperbacks by montaging brash graphic images together and rendering them in unorthodox mixed media techniques that tipped their hat to abstract expressionism.

Its easy to be blasé about punk rock design in today’s visually overloaded world where everything’s been done… but in the Leave-It-to-Beaver America of 50 years ago this was pretty wild stuff!

There are some remarkable collections of vintage paperback covers on Flickr. One of the best has been compiled by collector/archivist UK Vintage. Recently, he assembled for our viewing pleasure a tidy little set of 1950’s Mitchell Hooks covers ( with a promise of more to come).

If UK Vintage’s Mitchell Hooks set leaves you hungry for more (and I don’t blame you one bit) then drop on over to Kyle Katz’ Mitchell Hooks set and satisfy your craving with even more hot dames, cool dicks and sizzling art, design and type that’s as fresh and inspiring today as it was half a century ago.

Baidi

“One morning Nayah is playing hide and seek with her big brother Baidi, when suddenly the room is destroyed and Nayah has disappeared. Baidi sets off on a wild quest in a fantasy world.”

Teaser for the animated series created by Charles Lefebvre / Thierry River / Slimane Aniss

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Tintin Sketchbook

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Check out Leigh Walton’s Tintin sketchbook Flickr set. Lots of great Tintins. And Haddocks. And Snowys.

Jen Stark

Jen Stark: On the Inside

If you haven’t heard of Jen Stark yet, you’re missing out. Well, not anymore: she has a new website that is stuffed with her amazing brightly-colored creations. I’ve mostly seen her cut-paper sculptures like the one above, but she makes similarly bright drawings in two dimensions as well.

Here’s a beautiful cut-paper animation she made as well:

“Streaming Gradient” by Jen Stark from Jen Stark on Vimeo.

(via @friendswithyou)