Animator. Director. Artist. Scapegoat.
Finally I can share this animated video I made back in October, in collaboration with Italian pop goddess Gala. I of course wanted to release it the minute it was finished, but the music biz doesn’t work that way, and I had to wait. The song is © Gala, but the art is Free Culture, baby!
UPDATE: Now available for purchase here!
I asked Theo Gray to make me this 9.25 x 12″ acrylic peg pad (as opposed to peg bar) so I could do some quickie pencil animations on my glass drawing board, which I use as a cheap light table (see photo above).
Instead of the traditional acme animation pegbar, which requires expensive pre-cut animation paper or/and a $500 hole punch, I wanted 3 round pegs that would line up with a standard inexpensive 3-hole punch. I specified clear acrylic, so I could scan drawings through it, so they’d stay in perfect register.
It works great. It’s small, light, and simple. I punch holes in cheap printer paper and off I go. Here’s a thing I made with it, inspired by Preston Blair:
Clearly this could be better, but it’s the fault of the animator, not the peg pad. I need to practice my hand-drawn animatin’ to improve. Now I can!
We can make more of these peg pads if it looks like there’s enough demand to sell 5 to 10 of them. Would you buy one for $20? If so, we’ll make them and put them on the e-store. What say ye?
I made these to illustrate the difference between shifting a Rohloff vs. conventional derailleur/cassette system in a velomobile going at speed. According to Doug Davis at Bicycle Evolution, some novice velonauts desire Rohloffs because they offer a very wide gear range, but the larger gaps between gears make them less efficient at speed. He has data about watts and gear inches and rotations per minute, but I merely tried to convey the drama of having to upshift too fast in a 60+ pound tub:
For contrast, the illustration below represents a more narrowly spaced conventional rear cassette setup, like what I have on my Mango:
Maybe we’ll talk about this, and other recumbent nerd stuff, on the next Laidback Bike Report.
Animating waves does not come naturally to me. I covet the skills of animators who do them well, so when I recently found myself staring at the animated gifs of Felix Colgrave, I thought, “I wish I could do that.” Then I thought – hey, maybe I can. Thus, using repeating waves as guidelines:
I made this:
It may not look like much to you, but for me, it is an achievement, promising more interesting possibilities to come.
Today I made this little straight-ahead hand-drawn pencil animation on a little 3×5″ pad. I was trying to give myself a little break from screens. You can see some eraser shreds got caught in the scanner; hopefully they add folksy charm.
Update: Someone on Neenster.org asked,”If we run it backwards, is it a creation myth?” You tell me:
Divine cycle:
