If you do not know what the 11 second club is, check it out here: www.11secondclub.com

This is my submission for January:

Or download a Higher Res version here (right click, save as)

-Tom

While I’m talking about Czechs…

I took a trip to Prague this summer to see my family and had the chance to see a photography exhibition called “Geometrie Nahoty” (Geometry of Nudity). The photographer’s name is Pavel Brunclik (Pah-vel Broon-tsleek) and I was immediately taken in by the imagery. I’ve always been very interested in human anatomy (while I was in Prague I also went to see the astounding Bodies exhibit). I tried to sketch a few of the photographs but I did not do them justice. I managed to find some images online of the gallery photos, so have a look:

The lighting was pretty neat. I believe models are all ballet dancers and it looks like they were really pushed to the limit physically for some of these poses. They really inspired me to draw. I tried to draw a few of the figures from the photos while I was in the gallery- here are two of my quick sketches:

That is all, for now…

-Tom

This post is spurred by a recent post about Czech Animator Jiri Trnka on Animation-treasures 2 by Hans Bacher (Where I graciously made a mess of the comments board :-/). In any case- as some of you may or may not know, I am from the Czech Republic. Not only that, but I am hoping to return sometime (from my current home in Ohio) to attend graduate school in animation. Czech Rep. has a very rich history in animation and art, and I thought I’d post something today about one of my favorite illustrators.

The man’s name is Petr Sis (Peh-tur Seess)- in english he is “Peter”- and he is a children’s book author (among many other things). Born in 1949, Sis lived through some of the less favorably remembered times of Czechoslovakia (mainly Soviet occupation), but he managed to lead quite an extraordinary life (and still does). Sis’ work ranges from awarded films to major book illustrations and Sis has appeared in several major publications. (Read more about Petr here)

Anyway, I just wanted to share some images from his books, which I always found quite captivating:

I find Sis’ graphical style quite magical. It certainly has something to do with growing up with his books- but I think Petr’s work is well worth some examination.

Until next time,

-Tom

I like to check CGsociety’s forums fairly often. Every now and then I come across something there that is fairly inspiring. (Although I must admit, I come across a lot of uninspiring things there as well.)

 In any case, I came across a film made by Tim Marchant called “Tidy Monster”. I think what really inspired me was the simplicity of the execution. You can watch it on Tim’s site and the film is on youtube here.

 Before I go on, I’d like to clarify what I mean by “simplicity”. I guess the term could be interpreted in many ways. I certainly do not mean that the film was simple; I mean, rather, to emphasize the fact that the visuals did not try to overpower or convolute the idea behind the film. Given the dialog in “Tidy Monster”, I think many animators/filmmakers would tend to try to cram as many insane visuals into the piece as they could. It is this kind of thinking often leads films deep into the ground. Humor me as I indulge in an analogy:

Let’s say we were making soup. First we should probably decide what kind of soup we want to make- we may call this the idea behind the soup (I know… reaaaaally subtle). There are numerous possibilities as far as types of soup, but for the purposes of this metaphor, and because I am a vegetarian… we’re going to make some delicious broccoli cheddar soup. Now we heat up some water, we prepare the pot and we put in the basic ingredients- essentially we give the soup a basic structure and context. So far so good…

Now its time to really make it taste gooooood. So what do we do? We find EEEEverything we like and we toss it in!! You like hot-dogs? In they go! How about some pancakes with loads of syrup? Throw’em in! I know, FRIED snickers bars… they’re all the rage- what the hell- toss a dozen of those in! And ice-cream goddammit… loads of ice-cream. Oh man oh man oh man oh man YEEEESSSSS!

Anybody want some soup?

The point I’m trying to make is putting a lot of “cool” stuff together does not make a good soup… errr… film. As much as we love those fried snickers bars, we need to cut them out if they do not point the audience toward something vital to the film’s idea. The idea is key… and sorry, no amount of technical goodies will ever replace the idea. At least not for me.

Anyway, I’m going to go vomit.

I put up a new header for my blog, as you may have noticed (hopefully better than the dull blue with centered text that used to be up top). I got the font at www.dafont.com . It was pretty fun to make. Apparently you can have the blog rotate through different headers. I may try that in the future.

I’ve also changed the name of the blog to “The Curious Animator”; I guess I’ve always really valued curiosity, and I’m trying to set a bar for myself with that title. Sort of a reminder to be engaged with the world…

 That’s all for now.

-Tom