April 22, 2013

A Commerical Break

While I wanted to go on with my City Lights painting and other financially Quixotic endeavours (the large painting wants to be seen -- and I have to make my whole portfolio/presentation w. w. webbified, and so on, and so on) I got this interesting, quite absorbing commission -- an animated short movie for a cute ballade about a man who's in love with... an electric bread toaster. Surreal enough!

I'll get paid too. That's good. Stop-motion animation, make no mistake, is Hard Work. You draw, you move the thing a little. Draw again. While there are cute and neat little tricks and loops to speed up the progress a little, I can still be grateful to reach but fifty seconds a day, if the subject is simple. A still:


 
You saw flying toasters, a classic that can't be avoided in these circumstances. (An entire, flapping flock is Not Simple if your bare hands let them fly, frame by frame...) Here's another toaster, definitely turned on...




...and there's love in a cab, with a toaster. You get the idea.
The tragic and very electrical end of this fair tale of unorthodox love I must not divulge. 



Adverse effects of this assignment: Hands that hurt and an inexplicable longing for buttered, toasted bread. 

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