Animation Inspiration Week 1

 

I listened to a podcast about curating inspiration for your art style and I watched Ira Glass's video where he explains reassuringly that everyone starts off rocky in their practice and it's normal to get discouraged. He explains that there will always be a gap between where you are and where you want to be but its important to develop good taste first and so I wanted to share some animators that inspire me. I will attempt to articulate why each artist/animators' work inspires me. 

Motion Designer

Seongjin Yoon - currently a senior motion designer at Hornet (a studio that I look up to).

Seongjin Yoon's Vimeo Seonjin Yoon's Website

I return to his instagram page frequently to ogle at his work because it's phenomenal. His design skills combined with his animation skills allow him to create the most striking visuals. You can tell he's also an incredible illustrator by the way he understands lighting and color which for me is incredibly hard to grasp. He's just awesome. 

Looking at Traditional Animators

Although I don't see myself harnering the patience to draw frame by frame animation, it is the animation style I'm gravitated to the most and I'd like to emulate this style as best as I can.

Marine Buffard - llustrator, visual artist, animator and creative strategist based in Paris. (frame by frame animations done in Photoshop I believe)

Website

Marine Buffard's soft moving illustrations whisk me away to another dimension. The soft gradients she's able to blend and manipulate put me in a trance, like I'm day dreaming. I've watched her process videos where she shows the steps she took to rough out her movements, outline in black, and then color them. I cannot fathom the hours she spent drawing these frame by frame. Her work is incredibly special.

Max Litvinov - animator who does a frame by frame animations on paper. His work is really trippy. 

Max Livinov's work is so unhinged and unpolished that it's so refreshing to look at. His style is experimental and far from the commercial motion graphic styles I see today which, after awhile, start to look the same. His moving sporadic lines inspire me to let go and get weird. 

Allison Schulnik - stop motion animator, animated the music video for Grizzly Bear's "Ready Able" I love her haunting figures. 
My favorite short film of hers is EAGER. I think her background in dance shows in how these characters were choreographed:

I have to say that I can't help comparing myself to these animators because I feel my goals are unreachable with the skills I have right now. I actually avoided looking at other people's work for the longest time because I could tell it was bringing my self esteem down.

But I recognize that their hard work got them to where they are now.