Pictoplasma Festival 2010

If you know me, you know that I am a big fan of the pictoplasma events. They are not only about my favorite subjects like characters, animation and playful design but also amongst the most pleasant, friendliest and well organised fairs you can attend. Dany and I already got our tickets, and you can come, too. Get tickets here. I am already looking forward to a weekend of watching movies, lectures, meeting people and getting inspired.

Pixel Art: Sheer elegance in its simplicity

You need to watch this show if you did not get the reference.
My current project has me embarked on a sail through the realms of the pixel art. Something I have never done before and did not fancy all that much. Plus, after all that 3D- and compositing work, I am starving for some honest pen drawing. Being the clever schmock, I pitched the style for the project as 8bit retro game art but executed as a hand drawing. I figured, not many have done this kind of high concept approach and at the time it seemed like a clever idea, like this here sketch.
But the ass-for-a-face client liks my preliminary sketches in "real" pixel art more so I unwillingly am pushed to do an all out pixel art project without any real pen work. But as I dig into it a little bit I grow to like it more and handling the new rules makes one come up with new ideas all of a sudden. I come to appreciate all the cool things pixel artists have given us so far. From the original 8-bit veterans who handled technical restrictions and build a style out of necessity to the current designers who self impose pixel art rules either because their monkey brains are stuck on super mario land or they just can't draw.
Either era bred tons of cool designs and styles. My project is not going to be released until April so bear with me and have fun checking those links:

Eboy - I don't really have to explain the guys who made pixel art cool again 10 years ago. Mostly poster art, but also lots of toys and designy stuff.
Flairs - Truckers Delight I love this Music Video. Its retro but it's cool too.
Cave Story A very cool freeware game. Very famous too as I just found out. Super gameplay, nice story and lots of cool artwork. They are working on a Wii portation.
Super Brothers They make illustration and animations and I think something for the Iphone. And this is currently my desktop picture. I love their stuff. I don't really understand it, but I guess that is part of the appeal.
Architecture in Helsinki Do the Whirlwind - nice Music Video. I love their music, too.
Kings of Power 4 Billion % by Paul Robertson. Sick sick sick Animation reminiscent of videogame titles like Metal Slug and streets of rage.
Meatboy very cool game by indie developer Ed McMillen

For some reason, I am starting to hate on all that 8bit style music that has to many high pitched sounds, blips and squeeks in it. It is exhausting. If you are the twittering type, follow me on twitter - there I am even more boring (and german!)

Bill Shannon doing his thing

This guy is absolutely awesome. While being physically impared he manages to do the most amazing moves with his crutches something between brakedance, skateboarding and . Totally inspiring. There is this way of comming up with things in design called "innovation through restriction" "or designing on a shoe string" meaning achieving new solutions by focussing on very little means and tools. How this guy turns his physical restriction into a new, playful art form is nothing short of great design.

Music Video for RjD2





and here is a commercial he was hired for.


(via farbwolke)

Zombietöter: Endstation Zombie

The dream team Strangmeyer/Krehl delivered another adventure of the famous Zombietöter just right for Halloween. I did this little tribute pic. Enjoy the comic.
English Zombietöter
Deutscher Zombietöter

Mind Game (2004)

Director Masaaki Yuasa
Studio Studio4°C



Yesterday, we saw MindGame, which was such a mindblowing experience that I had to share this. I will not get into the story and I don't recommend going to wikki since there is a serious amount of spoilers in the summary.

Being a huge fan of the studio which had done astonishing work on the Animatrix series and one of my all time favorites Tekkon Kinkreet (2006) and Spriggan (1998), amongst many, I was craving to get my hands on this piece ever since I saw the trailer. The Trailer gives a pretty good impression on the visual and artistic ballistics which are fired upon your brain in an unbelievable manner for 100 minutes, nothing I have seen since The Flying Circuis Series comes even close to this. For the visuals alone, this film is worth a cheggedicheck.

To be honest, I did expect the story to be somewhat complicated and hard to follow, which is not uncommon for Japanese animation and also the reason I have to see these movies more than once to grasp them. So I got myself in the David Lynch mode and put it on. The film throws many nonlinear sequences at you, brakes lines of thought here and there but it is a genuine plasant and easy to follow ride. Storytelling is deliberately confusing at first to give the viewer this sense of being lost, but the narration pulls it together nicely which enhances the joy of the conclusion even more. The film surfaced in 2004 and I am somewhat sad that it took five years to be released in Germany but I guess for me, the film comes just in the right time. Just when I was coming out of a rather annoying illness and trying to get my ass back in gear to tackle all the issues that build up when I was physically and mentally incapacitated, this film reminded me of what it is that I love about animation and why I want to invest so much of my life into this art form.

Go rent and buy the DVD now.

Richard Byers Exibition

I met Australian artist Richard Byers at the Pictoplasma Conference this year. He is a really talented and friendly guy and he is having an exibition in the RIPA.FRIES.GALLERY in Berlin-Mitte this week. Don't miss the Opening on Thursday, 17.09.2009 19:00. Gormannstraße 16.

Popcorn Movie

Popcorn Movie from Gellnerism on Vimeo.

Dany und ich haben den perfekten Popcornfilm gedreht. Wir lieben unser Popcorn gesalzen und mit etwas zerlaufener Butter. Abends machen wir uns oft eine Portion und genießen sie zum abendlichen Film oder Videospiel. Die Technik wurde von Generation zu Generation weitergegeben und wurde von Frau Doktor Dany perfektioniert. So haben wir meistens nur vier bis achteinhalb nicht aufgegangene Maiskörner pro 100g. Diese Quote wäre selbst für professionelle Popcornmaschinen beachtlich.

Jazam 4 Monster

Das neue Jazam (ich erwähnte es bereits) ist draußen und darf vorbestellt werden. Ich habe das Fanprojekt aus dem Comicforum seit Stunde Null begleitet und beobachte, dass die Qualität der Arbeiten, der Buchgestaltung und der Organisation von Jahr zu Jahr besser geworden ist. Auch Jazam ist eine dieser Wundertüten, voll mit unbekannten und jungen Comicmachern, zeigt die Entwicklung vieler Zeichner seit vier Jahren und wird immer mehr auch ein Forum für erfahrene und etablierte Künstlern. Diese Mischung macht das Projekt sehr spannend - ich bin sehr gespannt. Rund 60 Künstler, 356 Seiten für 15 €. Kaufbefehl.

FMX und ITF 2009s

Hallo Kinder,
Ich habe einen kleinen Erfahrungsbericht zur FMX und ITFS geschrieben. Der Text ist bei Kopfbunt als Gastbeitrag erschienen. Wenn euch ein paar Rechschreibfehla und Wortdreher nicht stören, pilgert zum bunten Kopp. Schönen Sonntag!

Einsichten an der HTW

Die Einsichten sind eine monatliche Vortragsreihe des Fachbereichs Kommunikationsdesign an meiner Heimatuni, der HTW Berlin. Meine tolle, beneidenswert attraktive Freundin hat damals viel für den Aufbau der Reihe getan, bei dem man oft sehr interessante und lohnende Vorträge zu allem was angehende und "fertige" Designer interessiert, erleben kann. Mitlerweile gestalten und organisieren unsere Nachfolgerstudis neben dem Bachelorstress alles und gerade zu diesen tollen Wetter kann ich einen Ausflug an die Wuhlheide nur empfehlen. Der nächste Termin ist Dienstag, 05 Mai.

Dann verlinke ich gleich noch unseren FSR mit.

Anfang anzufangen @ Sehsüchte

Anfang anzufangen is running at the Sehsüchte International Student Film Festival in Potsdam on Friday, 24.04.2009. I recommend visiting the six day festival bash that features about 160 films from all parts of the worlds. I think it is the largest student film festival of the world too.

The Thalia cinema is a very nice location. I remember that my parents took me and my brother there some time after the German reunion. I have some nice memories with this place and now I am looking forward to seeing my work on the big screen again. Also, I should really turn more of my films in to festivals... But that's a whole other story.

Résumé for "Prepare for Pictopia"

When You're Smiling... from David OReilly on Vimeo.

My Girlfriend and I attended the third pictoplasma conference this year and it really has been a blast for us. Unlike other conferences, this character-, animation and design- and art fest hosted a vast number of exibitions, parties, and workshops that framed the actual conference made up of speaker's lectures, smyposium panels and screenings. The non-elitist, family vibe that took over the "Haus der Kulturen der Welt" for three days was something that we really enjoyed. During the conference you always had families with little kids playing within the exibition and playground spaces, and even strollers and tourists, that would otherwise have no interest in the matter, would show up and enjoy the event. If not the exibitions throughout Berlin, this shows the interest in promoting the love for character design to the general public rather than making a class gathering of a handful of mates.

The conference audience was mainly made up of artists, students, fans, designers and journalists. There was no V.I.P. launch for the speakers so if they stuck around, fans and students could get in touch with them, ask them questions or show some artwork if they felt like it. This constant dialogue was also encouraged by the workshops and the so called "breakfast pitch" hosted by Fons Schiedon. Here, upcoming artists could share their projects with the audience.

Mawil in the middle: Panel discussion about the work of Boris Hoppek (the guy with the laptop on the right), Boris Hoppek not saying one word, the others saying a lot of words.

I did not partake in any workshop activity but tried to follow all the presentations and panel discussions. Boris Hoppek had a nice presentation where six people talked about his work while he took care the pictures were shown in the right order. Gaston Caba presented his rich body of work and finished the presentation with a song performance. That was something. Marc Craste of Studio A.K.A did a very firm and adept presentation that mirrored his experience. I find it interesting to see that a company that I really look up to for its awesome film and design work, has similar problems with clients and budgets and the urge for self expression as small one (wo)man freelancers. Only on other levels of professionality of course.

AJ Fosik just blew me away with his stunning artwork/installation pieces and probably the best structured and on point presentation of all artist speakers. I realised then, a well structured presentation and rhetoric skills really help me stay foussed as a listener. As much as I appreciate the pure entertainment value of whimsical ill-English presentations of Akinori Oishi, or Eboy , after a day of listening and talking and concentrating, it can be hard to follow a presentation that takes much deciphering on the audience side. Accordingly, I fell asleep at the presentation by Protey Temen from Russia. But Dany said his work was really astonishing.

James Jarvis from London sketching

James Jarvis, best known for his designs for collectable toys, held a really honest and interesting presentation. He pointed out that even a well established artist of almost 40 years can still be on the search for his artistic identity and unsatisfied with his achievements despite of his success. He is also a runner an finished the marathon in 2 hours 32min. He is probably the fastest character designer on the planet.

Circulus O'Reillyus

Tying in to the theme of dissatisfaction in the arts was recent Golden Bear winner and animation boy wonder David O'Reilly. He made a chart explaining his idea finding process which according his outlines is a circulus vitiosus of pain, ideas, exposition and humiliation. Very nice. David also paid his due respect to the masters by showing a clip of the Imagination Land episode.
Fons Schiedon showed some recent animation work and paintings while Wayne Horse probably produced the biggest laughs, showing off work like Schweinemann, his shorts "ponzo", "flying cars", "telltales" or the "Adrian Falk" music video. And yes, you can find all that stuff on his site, but his presentation and mild punk attitude just rocked the house. Finnish illustrator Klaus Haapaniemi concludes the list of my favorite presentations. He presented with the help of his wife (I think) and it really felt like they were having a private conversation which just so happened to be in front of some hundred people. He is a unbelievably skilled and productive illustrator.

The full list of prentations can be found here. My favorite symposium panel was called "Shaping Global Media -Character Creation" and featured Geoffrey Long, Ken Belson and Frenchy Lunning. They talked about transmedia branding and story telling, Hello Kitty, and the japanese Shojo culture Very interesting.

Mr. TTT and cute girl

We also adopted this cute Mr. TTT from the awesome "Friends with You". He adopted to life in his new environment really good and here you can see him exploring the Pictopia place.

Mr TTT @ Pictopia from Gellnerism on Vimeo.

Here are some more impressions

Aki Oishi

Motomishi installation

Exibiton

"Haus der Kulturen der Welt" with pictobanners

These potatoe people (???) are hand drawn by Aki Oishi

Installation by AJ Fosik

All in all, it has been a wonderful event and I am looking forward to preparing for the next pictoevent in the future. In times of constant media availability (interwebs and such), the worth of actually attending an event and experiencing something first hand even rises. That's how I feel about going out versus looking shit up on the computer. Joel Gethin Lewis, genius artist in his own right, said something similar at the Tocame Design conference this year.

more
picto Photostream by Allerleirei
picto Phpotostream by Visual Orgasm
pictoplasm photostream

Portfolio Update

Yeah, I updated my Illustration & Motion Graphics Portfolio this weekend. I put up some more work, and chanced the look of the site a little bit. Now I have eight "hotlinks" under the update section that lead you directly to featured project. Furthermore, the work is devided into five sections, motion, illustration, comic, interactive and laboratory - the two latter being more of experimental categories. Have fun exploring and please tell me what you think.

CLICK HERE

Crisis of credit

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo

Nice explanation how the financial crisis came about. More info on the movie here.

The Pinky Show

The Pinky Show is an alternative educational project using lowfi animation. They are really sweet and insightful, not your usual 30 sec gagreel, but a well researched and ballanced script. Go to their website and watch some episodes and if you want to support them, donate some bugs.
some more:
war on drugs: fail!
we love museums
Edit: I just finished watching this video on the Europan backed occupation of Iraq. Very worth watching.

Christmast

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I made a little flash game where you have to mast the reluctant elf Prepelklum to battle santa.

Click here to play!

Thesis: Nina Paley & Bill Plymton

Bill Plymton pretty much got me hooked on becoming an animation guy. He makes the animation process visible, animating with illustration by really cutting back on the frames he draws but making them count. While traditional animation uses 12 pictures per secound and more, trying to hide the fact, that all the fun characters are just a bunch of flickering pen strokes, he gets by with three at times. And he makes his own stuff, so that's why I have to feature him in my little thesis. Nina Paley worked three years on her first feature that I saw at the Berlina festival. She uses flash and a lot of different styles to tell her story but she does that with such delightful humour and fun attitude that made the electrified the audience and made me very euphoric about her work.

Sita Trailer Great.

Idiots and Angels OMGWTFBBQ

Richard Dawkins & Alister McGrath on religion and atheism

I really enjoyed listening to this debate that was led by Richard Dawkins (the God Dillusion) and Alister McGrath (Dawkin's Dillusion). The acclaimed atheist Dawkins explains his thoughts on religion, the lack that of and other important things whilst challenged by former atheist, now christian theologist McGrath.
Enjoy.

Thesis: starting out

I am working on my thesis "the aesthetics and economics of independent animation" which is a very interesting subject for me to explore. These are very exciting times to be in animation and I think especially the independent, or let's say for now, the smaller studio scence, is producing a never before seen mass of artistic successes while exploring new business models. I am very fascinated by the kind of artistic driven smaller and middle size studios like Studio Soi, the Mill, Studio AKA, Psyop to only name a few. But I want to explore more on the kind of Studios and single Animators that focus on telling their personal story in their films and try to get an audience and probably a revenue out of their films.(like my peer David o'Reilly, we have little fan club here :) ) How do one approaches animation as a small venture? How does one juggle artistic and economic goals and how to organize distribution and marketing?
I have talked to and conducted interviews with people that I really admire, like Fred Seibert, Bill Plymton, Nina Paley, Pat Smith, Hanan Harchol or Klaus Baumgart, the latter being a successfull Childrens Book Illustrator and my professor, but I listen to him anyway, sometimes. :) Even though my piece will mirror my personal stand point on the subject, the interviews helped me a great deal to for perspective and to examine different strategies. My starting point is that "Independent Animation" should be both the striving for artistic and narrative fullfilment and economic independence and let's see where I get from there.

Sidenote: check out the DVD promo animation for Richard Williams DVD collection the Animator's Survival Kit Animated. I bought the book in 2003 and roled with it ever since.

Russen and Schmidt's Katzen Exibitions

I am participating in two more Exibitions this year and then I am cutting the crap and finishing my thesis essay. Both are group exibitions and I will have two to three pieces in it.

Schmidts Katzen

8.November 20:00
Villa
Landsberger Allee 54

Rotopol "Russians"


rotopolpress
Friedrich-Eber-Str. 95
D-34119 Kassel