Animation, Art, and Other Shiny Things
Cover art for The 6 Voyages of Lone Sloan
Philippe Druillet [english link] spent his childhood in Catalonia on the Iberian peninsula of Spain, moving back to France when he was eight. Beginning his artistic career as a photographer, he didn’t start selling his drawings until he was 22 and soon took his most famous character Lone Sloan to the French comic magazine Pilote.
Pilote also introduced us to Uderzo and Goscinny‘s Asterix and several artists that I came to know from the pages of Heavy Metal magazine including Moebius and Bilal.
Like Moebius, Druillet is another of the founders of Les Humanoïdes Associés that subsequently published Métal Hurlant and it’s American sister mag, Heavy Metal. Also like Moebius, Druillet’s work showed up a lot in the early issues.
Cover Art for Heavy Metal’s May 1978 Issue
His stories can be somewhat inscrutable; many of his panels might have no text or dialogue and then one will have a large text box full of tightly-packed words.
Story aside, what I’ve always loved about his stuff has been the mingling of eastern, art deco, and art noveau complexities all with a savage, martial demeanor. Rather than small-scene windows into the story, Mr Druillet’s art is wide-angle and complex often given to huge vistas and grand architecture. It’s also not uncommon for his characters to be biomechanoid in some fashion, and his architecture to be rather organic – something akin to HR Giger’s work.
Here are just a few of my more favorite illustrations of his:
From Druillet’s illustration of Michael Moorcock’s Saga of Elric the Necromancer
It’s summertime and today it’s in the upper-60s here in Seattle. Sun breaks, clouds, an occasional shower – in other words, perfect weather.
A lot of other spots aren’t so lucky and are getting some serious heat. This weekend’s unscheduled music video is dedicated to the folks melting in their weather.
Too Darn Hot by Ella Fitzgerald and mixed by RAC. Remix Artist Collective is a now-solo project of André Allen Anjos whose remixed some classics.
Micah Lee of Attic Pictures edited the Mickey Mouse short Stayin’ Cool to match up pretty well.
While chicken with teeth sounds like a step forward it may not be the advancement we think it is. Fortunately there are fowl who are willing to cross more than just a road to make things right.
Created at the École Supérieure des Métiers de l’Image – ESMI – Bordeaux
(This is set in the year 2112 so I have to believe the animators are Rush fans)
Ed is at the end of his career and reflects on his decades of experiences.
The 3d effects are very well done in this excellent and rather touching animation. Via hype.cg out of Port Alegre, Brazil
A very Saturday night music video – probably nsfw if you count mechanical breast-like things and the occasional USB suggestiveness.
Complex animation gives a lot to watch in this fun video. The music has a nice, quiet, rolling piano riff running through it that sets a pace that the video follows nicely.
Directed and animated by Jake Zhang. Music is My Name is Trouble by Keren Ann
For the unscheduled weekend music video this week I offer up a brassy folk tune with a tale to match and animated by one of our favorites at the crow’s nest.
Another otherworldly animation by Mattias Gordon. This one tells of a traveler that is served more spirits than the merely alcoholic ones. From the album Devil’s Tale by Adrian Raso and Balkan brass band Fanfare Ciocarlia.
A combination of stop-motion and cel animation, this short was nominated for an Academy Award in 1998.
More tells the story of an inventor who lives in a drab, colorless world. Day by day, he toils away in a harsh, dull, and dehumanizing job, his only savior being the memories of the bliss of childhood. But at night, he works secretly on an invention that could help him relive those memories and spread their joy to everyone in his despair-filled life.
When he finishes the invention, it changes the way people look at the world, but not the world itself. His success changes him, however, because he loses an important part of himself. via
Written and directed by Mark Osborne.
As a watchmaker is near finishing a clockwork diorama of his fondest memory, an old and tattered mime doll comes to life.
Another wonderful film from the very talented students at ESMA (Ecole Supérieure des Métiers Artistiques) in France. Animated by Valentin Gueu, Romain Maleyrot, Jérôme Oudot, and Shirley Pons.
A swingin’ tune for a late weekend night by Jazzbit featuring Stefano di Battista.
It’s about time the weekend got here, I was starting to worry and about ready to send out a search party to find it. Maybe dropping a heavy vid like this one will fix the weekend in place for a bit.
Glitch, swing, electro – all of ’em – all wrapped up in a story of mobsters, money, and … monkeys. Great animation style by, appropriately, Grey Monkey Productions (Eddy Loukil & Victor Jardel)
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The Ruffled Crow 