Strangely – the same thing holds true with animation. I should like to astonish with mere shapes. I should like to astonish with simple forms. And the most astonishing moments in animation are the subtle ones. As much as Michael Bay likes throwing giant robots right into the camera, it’s well known the magic really happens with we have to make things act, feel, take a breath before the leap, or reflect before saying something.

I thought of Cezanne, when we purchased fruit this weekend. I even got a whole pineapple. Before we enjoyed the fruit, I set it up in a bowl and thought it would be fun to do a still life – even if it’s just a sketch with my kids Crayola colored pencils rather than Prisma Color. I even had the kids join me in drawing the apples, oranges, and bananas.

My apples are unlikely to astonish Paris.
But the still life tasted great, and we all had fun.

I posted a couple of images of Cezanne apples as well, courtesy of paul-cezanne.org

No special reason for picking Aeon Flux as the subject, guess I’ve just been watching a bunch of sci-fi movies lately. As always, thanks for following along with my art journey.

The first couple years of the Cassandra Cain Batgirl were awesome. Almost 90% silent storytelling. Not cluttered with dialog like many comics. If you didn’t read the visual language you really missed a lot.

My boards here reflect the low-dialog purely visual storytelling style of those early comics.

-Elias

With some pro quality colored pencils you can softly blend colors like paint and get amazingly realistic results.

Just like painting, however, I equally enjoy when you can reveal the brush strokes… or in this case, pencil strokes. I didn’t fill an area of skin tone or dress in one solid single flat color. Variations of that color, or opposing colors are not blended in – but scattered throughout.

The line art was in black ink.

-Elias

An odd experiment into oddly depicted animals in silhouette.

Nothing generates creativity in illustration more than keeping it simple, stripping away as much of the line art and detail as possible, and make it read in solid black.

Then take it and try, when it strikes you, to structure the animals in an abnormal way, and you get one wickedly whacked out pachyderm, or a twisted, angular, maze-like rattler.

-Elias

Oh course there are many we left out. Some not mentioned on the list would easily include South Park, Futurama’s many DVD releases, Star Wars: Clone Wars, Blenders “Big Buck Bunny”, Kung Fu Panda, and Corpse Bride among others.

And that’s before we start talking about tv commercials. How could we not mention Red Bull’s wings, Charmin’s bears, or the strangely large number of financial institutions that use cartoons, like Principal. What about UPS’s cardboard world animations? And let’s also not forget about the crazy world of the web. Do yourself a favor: if you want to have your mind blown, surf around on vimeo some.

Bottom line: this is a good time to be animated.

So, we pose this question: what’s on your list?

Enough talk. On to the list..

Our picks for: THE BEST ANIMATION of the DECADE

–Elias Dancey

This started simple enough as a sketch shown in image #02 above. As I began to add the color, I found I was drawn to the details (flowers and such). I had a hard time giving the details a look that felt good to me so I ended up using the pen tool in Photoshop to help define the edges a bit more. I really liked the mixture of painterly and cartoon-like feel.

I worked only in Photoshop CS4 this time, a first for me.  While I had mostly been learning to paint in Corel Painter, I had seen many other digital artists using Photoshop.  I think I quickly got use to the change and will certainly be using Photoshop more.

If you’re just starting out as I am, I’d love to hear your comments and learn about your experiences in digital art.

–Kevin Harrison

–Kevin Harrison