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Awesome Animation

3D Artist Challenge: Eternal Ascent

3D Artist Challenge: Eternal Ascent

For his latest 3D challenge, Clinton Jones, aka Pwnisher, asked CG artists to create scenes based on a template of a character climbing a curved staircase. After receiving 2800 entries from around the world, here are the top 100 renders edited together to create a seemingly endless climb, set to music by Feverkin. It’s hard to choose a favorite interpretation.

Making Microscopic Flipbook Animations

Making Microscopic Flipbook Animations

Andymation is known for his creative flipbook animations. He once created a flipbook smaller than a penny, but that wasn’t good enough for Andy, so he made an even smaller one. It took some work to get the camera and lens setup right; then, he got to work drawing each tiny frame with a sharp pencil. After that came the challenge of stacking them.

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Gruff

Gruff

“Some things don’t have words. So we have to be close enough to feel them.” A mother explains to her daughter how she came to understand the way her father expresses his love and support. Julian Curi aka Righteous Robot spent almost three years creating this paper stop-motion short film as a way of coping with his father’s passing.

Danny DeVito Is Wolverine

Danny DeVito Is Wolverine

Can you imagine if Danny DeVito joined the X-Men? Imagine no longer. The VFX team from Corridor used their creativity and modern animation tools to put together an insane fake trailer that sends Frank Reynolds to Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, where he embraces his inner Wolverito. In a hurry? Cut right to the chase.

The Wild Robot (Trailer)

The Wild Robot (Trailer)

This animated film follows the story of Roz, a robot that crashlands on an uninhabited island. Along the way, Roz finds ways to survive and thrive, and eventually, a place among the animals. Lupita Nyong’o and Pedro Pascal head up a star-studded voice cast, along with Mark Hamill, Matt Berry, Catherine O’Hara, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, and Ving Rhames.

Birds with Arms

Birds with Arms

Artist LeopARTnik creates hilarious short animations by drawing arms on birds. This compilation video shows some of his best doodles from 2023, including a bird putting a guitar smackdown on a kitten, a chicken on tiny skis, and a parrot that washes windows. Quantastic put together a couple more videos of his work.

The Soup

The Soup

This charming animated short by 16-year-old CG artist John Torres looks at a day in the life of a robotic farmer as it patiently waits to harvest vegetables to put into a pot of homemade soup. John says his film “highlights the virtues of perseverance, mindfulness, and the joy that can be found in the simplest of tasks.” Created with Blender.

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Chinese Man: Too Late

Chinese Man: Too Late

We’re lovestruck by Patator’s animated music video for French trip-hop group Chinese Man’s poetic track Too Late. The stop-motion clip drops us into a magical world where horses breakdance and scratch records and storied lives play out on a human-sized hamster wheel.

Steamboat Willie in MS-DOS

Steamboat Willie in MS-DOS

Here’s a different take on Disney’s Steamboat Willie now that it’s in the public domain. d o g took Ub Iwerks’ 1928 classic cartoon and converted it into retro pixel art animation. You can play the video now, or, of you’re feeling more ambitions, load up the DOSbox emulator and load this XDV file into XDC Play.

Dreaming Child

Dreaming Child

Animator Lee Hardcastle is known for his gory and twisted claymation shorts, including Rick and Morty’s Non Canonical Adventures. In Dreaming Child, we’re transported into the mind of a young boy whose dream starts out joyful but quickly turns into a surreal nightmare.

In the Know (Trailer)

In the Know (Trailer)

This animated/live-action series from Beavis and Butt-Head creator Mike Judge stars Zach Woods as an NPR talk show host who awkwardly interviews real-world celebrities. Season one guests include Hugh Laurie, Mike Tyson, and Nicole Byer. It’s a similar premise to Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and Earth to Ned, without the aliens. Coming to Peacock 1.25.2024.

The Quarry

The Quarry

Graham Mason’s silly animated short is basically what would happen if Dunder-Mifflin was a rock quarry, and the office staff was made up entirely of rocks. Instead of Jim and Pam, we get a duo of blobby boulders with a similarly charming and challenged work-personal relationship. Created for Adult Swim Smalls.

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BOOM

BOOM

This award-winning animated film from École des Nouvelles Images drops us onto an island where a volcanic eruption threatens a flock of birds. As the cloud of dust and lava bursts into the sky, two birds try their best to save their eggs from disaster. The short does a great job of ramping up the tension while remaining lighthearted in its approach.

Grimsburg: First Look

Grimsburg: First Look

From Don Draper to Roy Tillman, there’s no question that Jon Hamm has range. On the animated series Grimsburg, Hamm voices Detective Marvin Flute. After being kicked off the force, “the greatest detective ever” returns to his seedy hometown to solve crimes and maybe get his family back. A preview episode hits FOX on 1.7.23 and Hulu 1.8.23.

Time-Slice Animations

Time-Slice Animations

Visual artist and musician Ellard Devane creates mindblowing animations out of clay. But these are no California raisins, nope. Ellard makes his works by arranging polymer clay into surreal faces and scenes that reveal themselves as he slices away at them, layer by layer, frame by frame. This video compiles highlights from the past couple of years.

ESC.

ESC.

This animated short film follows an overworked woman who’s falling apart at the seams under the stress of everyday life. Can she escape the chaos? Writer/Director Sam Southward and a talented team of artists and animators bring the story to life with brilliant character design and a clever use of space and motion.

Papercut Geometric Animation

Papercut Geometric Animation

TraceLoops creates eye-catching mixed-media art and animation. Much of their recent work involves making sequences by layering precision-cut sheets of paper and layering them to create a stop-frame sequence. Their YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram pages are filled with more of these hypnotic animations.

Carol & The End of the World (Trailer)

Carol & The End of the World (Trailer)

In the animated mini-series Carol & The End of the World, Earth stands on the brink of mass extinction. While most people start living out their dreams before the end, one perfectly average woman finds herself lost in the chaos. From Rick & Morty and Community writer Dan Guterman. Coming to Netflix 12.15.2023.

The Beatles vs. The Stones, Animated

The Beatles vs. The Stones, Animated

Whether or not there was a true rivalry, the media loved to play up the competition between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Dog & Rabbit’s brilliantly executed short film plays out this battle through a series of slapstick collages animated using the dueling rock bands’ album art. Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python animations were clearly a source of inspiration.

Sh*t Show

Sh*t Show

(PG-13) Evan Hallbeck’s short film is as tasteless as it is hilarious. It follows the story of three disgusting items that ended up in the sewer and tells their origin stories through a trio of live-action vignettes. You can pretty much guess where this is going from the thumbnail. Savannah Steiner is responsible for the gross-out animation.

Creature Comfort

Creature Comfort

When a creature awakens in the woods, he searches the depths of his memories for clues as to how he got there and why he’s in the condition he’s in. Animator Aiden Whittam and written/director Ryan Oligmueller’s stop-motion short film takes on the difficult topic of depression in an artful and compelling way. Watch the behind-the-scenes footage here.

The Forbidden Zone

The Forbidden Zone

Not to be confused with the bonkers 1982 film of the same name, Zach Tolchinsky’s stop-motion animated short has a decidedly more coherent plot. It follows a man living in the ruins of civilization when a flash of light appears outside his bunker. He could stay safely inside, but instead, he risks everything and heads into the Forbidden Zone to investigate.

Short Changed

Short Changed

In animator Zoë Hutber’s award-winning short film, a couple feels crushed by the burden of a society where everyone is literally made of money. As the fat cat at the top of the heap continues to demand a chunk of their flesh, only time will tell if their investments will ultimately pay off.

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