Pythagasaurus is a wonderfully realized CGI animated short about “…the Mighty Pythagasaurus, the fabled tyrannosaurus practiced in the skills of trigonometry and long division”.

The short is directed by Peter Peake and animated by Pascale Bories, with wonderful voice characterization by Bill Bailey, Martin Trenaman and Simon Greenall.

Not exactly what you would expect from the preview images (grin).

[Via MetaFilter]

I’ve written previously about 3-D animation video projection on the sides of buildings, specifically about those created by NuFormer.

I’m uncertain who created this example in Berlin (the only credit line I can find says “Facade Mapping Image Show”, but I can’t find a site for that name), but it’s probably the most striking one I’ve seen.

This is basically a kind of 3-D animation projected against the side of a building, and initially, at least, “mapped” to the buildings surface, allowing the animators to have their way with the building, both as a subject and as a surface for projecting other images.

You can watch it on YouTube or Vimeo or on the BoingBoing site, which is where I learned about it initially.

View it full screen for best effect. It must be even more striking to see this projected against a building in person. The small still images above don’t do justice to the visual charm of the animation.

In this case the entire thing is a commercial – an ad for LG, though the actual advertising component is nicely incorporated. If more ads were this dazzling and visually imaginative, I’d seek them out as entertainment.

[Via BoingBoing]

1923 aka Heaven (images above, top five) and 1925 aka Hell (above, bottom 5) are two animated film by Max Hattler that were inspired by two paintings by French outsider artist Augustin Lesage.

The two paintings are both named A symbolic Composition of the Spiritual World, one painted in 1923 (above, middle left) and one in 1925 (middle right).

Hattler’s animation loops are just that, motion and sound, no story, and they repeat phrases and sequences with variations in color and other characteristics. They are exercises in rythym, pattern repetition and recursion. They were created over a five day period with students at the Animation Workshop in Viborg , Denmark.

You can see more of Hattler’s animations on his website; I’ll try to post more about Augustin Lesage in an upcoming post.

[Via DATAISNATURE and MetaFilter]

Illustrator and animator Michael B. Myers has given us his vision of what the characters from the LOST television series would look like if they were designed for an animated series.

As unlikely as that possibility may be (except perhaps in alternate reality timeline limbo) it’s fun to have his nicely stylized treatment of some of the major characters from the series — even the smoke monster. (What, no Juliet?).

You can also find more of Myers’ digital painting, studies, sketches, posters and T-shirt designs on his website and on Behance Network.

I’ve written several times in the past about the wonderful student animation coming out of Gobelins, l’école de l’image (Goeblins School of Communications) in Paris.

It seems that each example I see is another small triumph for hand drawn animation in a world dominated by increasingly formulaic computer CGI.

Writing for On Animation, Daniel Caylor has a terrific article pointing us to both a selection of Gobelins animations that he has previously posted and a post on CATSUKA of Making-of films by various contributors to several Gobelins animations.

There are often several different Making-of films for the same animation, as they are usually the work of groups rather than individuals, and we get different perspectives on the creation of the works. There are also links to the animators’ demo reels.

Absolutely wonderful.

(Images above, top two: Fur, bottom two: Who’s Afraid of Mr. Greedy?; please see films for team credits)

The History of English is a series of 10 very short animated segments, totaling about 10 minutes, from The Open University that chronicle the origins of the language, its growth and expansion into the bazillion word behemoth we know and love today.

Narrated in a nicely cheeky tone, it’s amusing as well as informative.

Word up.

[Via MetaFilter]

As someone who very much enjoyed Dave Stevens’ comic book The Rocketeer, and the Republic Pictures 1950′s Commando Cody serials, to which Steven’s character was a loving homage, I couldn’t help but like 3-D animator Joe Banana’s The Rocketeer 20th Anniversary, which is in turn a homage to Steven’s character and the underrated 1991 Disney live action movie adaptation (a homage to a homage to a homage?).

Banana, who is co-creator and animator of the berserk game characters the RABBIDS, has created his delightful interpretation of the Rocketeer character done as a 3-D animated feature or TV show, giving us just enough of a taste to make us hope that Pixar will take the hint.

[Via Cartoon Brew]

Dripped is a beautifully designed and realized short animation about an art thief with a distinctive “taste” in art.

The 8 minute short was directed by Léo Verrier and brought to life by a team at the ChezEddy animation studio.

[Via MetaFilter]