If It's Hip, It's Here (Archives): animation

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Artist Rohitash Rao's Trash Is Most Definitely A Treasure.

If Ralph Steadman, Robert Crumb and Jean-Michel Basquiat ever combined their artistic talents, the result may look something like the whimsical, but edgy illustrative art by California artist Rohitash Rao, known as Ro to his friends.

above: artist Rohitash Rao

Ro is loaded with talent. So much so it was hard to decide what of his I ought to feature on this blog. An art director, film director, animator, illustrator and all around great guy (I speak from personal experience) he has three illustrated children's books to his credit (The fabulous Herbert's Wormhole series ), multiple music videos ( "Speeding to My Death" Official Video by Still Pacific and A Great Big World - "Everyone Is Gay" are must-sees), advertisements for well known brands, his fine art and more. His fabulous 'TRASHart' is what I've chosen to share with you today.

Combining multiple aspects of popular culture - such as the consumption of fast-food, excessive waste, movies, books and cartoon imagery along with graphic design and illustration, Rohitash's work exemplifies the old adage "One man's trash is another man's treasure." Stomped upon paper cups, crushed cigarette packs, soiled fast food containers, flattened spray paint cans and other garbage serve as the canvases for Ro's illustrated and painted figures, creatures, silhouettes and occasional commentary.

Since I have the pleasure of knowing Ro personally through both our Alma Mater, Pasadena's Art Center College of Design, and the world of advertising, he graciously offered to answer a few questions about these works for me:

IIHIH: WHEN DID YOU START CREATING THESE?
Ro: Technically I've been painting on stuff I find in the streets since I was kid - mainly because they were free canvases. But I started up again about 6 months when I moved to Venice and discovered all this great trash in the alley behind my studio. The first thing I painted on were these abandoned lottery tickets I found by a dumpster. I painted faces of the people that I imagined angrily chucked them on the ground after obviously not winning. I showed the paintings to a few friends and the response was so positive I did more.

Now i collect trash wherever I go. I was recently in Germany and Malta and I grabbed a few things off the streets while I was there. I am also getting commissions, most recently from Brazil. People are starting to mail me trash from all over the world. I'd love to do series about the geography of trash and collaborate with a litter organization or even someone like Surfrider down the road.

IIHIH: WHAT MEDIA DO YOU USE?
Ro: Everything is a mix of gouache, acrylic and spray paint. It's usually whatever material will work on the different textures. Some fast good cups are plastic coated so water based paints don't adhere to it. It's amazing how much I suddenly know what trash is conducive to what paint product!!!

IIHIH: WHAT OTHER ARTISTS INSPIRE YOU?
Ro: I like gritty, surreal stuff. So I guess the main ones would be Basquiat, R. Crumb, David Shrigley and Francis Bacon.

Let's hope that as long as people continue to make trash, Rohistash Rao continues to turn it into art.

Visit Rohitash Rao's tumblr site to see more.

Buy any of the Herbert's Wormhole Books illustrated by Rohitash Rao here

all images © and courtesy of the artist

The Walking Dead Guitars & Accessories From Peavey With Artwork By Charlie Aldard.

A big hit at the Long Beach Guitar Expo and The NAMM 2013 Show was the newly licensed product line from Peavey Electronics® featuring graphics from The Walking Dead, the award-winning comic and TV show.

The Kama Sutra Alphabet is a personal project from French born and London based illustrator Malika Favre. In 2011, Malika was commissioned by Paul Buckley at Penguin Books US to illustrate the new Deluxe Classic Cover of the Kama Sutra by Vatsyayana (shown below).

Today Google celebrates Earth Day with an interactive doodle that captures a slice of nature's subtle wonders. Click around and you'll discover tons of fun and cute options. Day or Night (the sun and moon act as pause and play buttons when clicked upon), Animals walk in and out of the caves, rainclouds you can control, even dandelions to blow upon.

Use the sightseeing checklist below to make sure you do not miss anything!

Google Doodler Leon Hong and collaborators Kris Hom, Mark Ivey, Greg Capuano, and Ryan Germick were responsible for the concept and design. And a very special thank you goes to Kris's high school teacher, Dr. Juan Fernandez, who served as their science advisor.

http://www.google.com/doodles/earth-day-2013

UPDATED: 45 New More Last Suppers for 2013. That's Now A Total of 105!

above: Last Supper Collage, 2013 by Akira Hashiguchi

For the past few years I have been sharing with you classic, modern, contemporary and pop culture versions of Leonardo Da Vinci's famous Last Supper painting.

Introducing a groundbreaking technique that seamlessly merges computer-generated and hand-drawn animation techniques, first-time director John Kahrs takes the art of animation in a bold new direction with the Oscar®-nominated short, "Paperman."

above: Paperman merges CG with hand-drawn illustrations for it's unique effect.

Using a minimalist black-and-white style, the short follows the story of a lonely young man in mid-century New York City, whose destiny takes an unexpected turn after a chance meeting with a beautiful woman on his morning commute.

Convinced the girl of his dreams is gone forever, he gets a second chance when he spots her in a skyscraper window across the avenue from his office. With only his heart, imagination and a stack of papers to get her attention, his efforts are no match for what the fates have in store for him.

Created by a small, innovative team working at Walt Disney Animation Studios, "Paperman" pushes the animation medium in an exciting new direction.

From the D23 blog:
Director John Kahrs began thinking about the basic premise for Paperman back in the early 1990s when he lived in New York City and commuted 38 miles each way to his job as an animator at Blue Sky Studios in Westchester County. “New York can be an intimidating place,” John says. “People tend to have their guard up when they’re going about their daily routine.

I can remember being on the train wishing I could make a connection with someone and have more of a social life. I would come back through Grand Central Station and go straight home. I kept thinking, ‘Here I am in the most amazing city in the world, and I’m just holed up in my apartment.’ Sometimes on my commute, I would see somebody and make eye contact and then that person would be gone forever. I started wondering what if that person was the one for me.

“I also began thinking about the notion of how a couple with a romantic connection would communicate across the big city,” John continues. “And this idea of throwing a paper airplane from one skyscraper to another was the visual hook that really got my gears turning. I started focusing on how this guy could reconnect with a girl he had made a connection with.”

John moved to California in 1997 to work for Pixar Animation Studios; the idea for Paperman continued to intrigue him. He developed it as a short film and edited together a rough version, but it wasn’t until he came to Disney in 2007 and completed his assignment as a supervising animator on the studio’s 2010 hit feature Tangled that things began to happen. Encouraged by the directors of Tangled, Nathan Greno and Byron Howard, and inspired by the artistic guidance of legendary Disney animator Glen Keane, John began to see new possibilities for bringing Paperman to the big screen.

Watch director John Kahrs talk about the drawings for Paperman:

2012 Reviewed in An Animated Infographic by Yiying Lu for Visual.ly

Artist Yiying Lu created this fun animated infographic for the San Francisco based data visualization company Visual.ly

Included after the infographic are some of her good 'old school' hand drawn ink sketches for the project.

Visual.ly
Yiying Lu

Countdown to Christmas Eve With Google's New Santa Tracker, Chrome App and Interactive Website.

For the past few years I have been writing posts about Norad's Santa Tracker (once a partner of Google's) and how it works as a nice online activity to enjoy with your children and friends. Now that Microsoft's Bing has partnered with Norad, Google has gone all out and created their own Google Maps' Santa Tracker and until it launches on Christmas Eve, you can explore a fun interactive animated site with plenty of games and goodies or download a Google Chrome app for added entertainment.

above: screen grabs of the Village briefing and windtunnel

Santa’s many developer elves, who are hard at work in the North Pole helping Santa prepare for his big day, have combined their elf magic with the latest and greatest in Google Maps technology and sleigh engineering to allow you to follow his progress around the world, and also learn a little about some of his stops along the way.

above: a sneak preview of the Google Santa Tracker which launches on Christmas Eve.

Even without using Google chrome as your browser, you can enjoy the following at the Google Santa Tracker Site:

•Create a Custom Phone Call from Santa in the form of an mp3 file you can send to your friends (This is really cool. It takes a few minutes to make the first one, but it's worth it.)

•You (or your kids) can play one of three games that operates with your keyboard.

Present Drop:

Village Racer:

Jetpack:

If you use Google Chrome, you can download the app and enjoy even more fun like a dashboard tracker, play around with Santa's blimp or elf bus and write messages on a frosty browser window.

•You can Follow Santa on Google+

The friendly elves have also invited you to explore Santa’s village while Santa gets ready for his journey. So go ahead and explore his village, you might just find some fun activities and meet some interesting elves.

The Google Maps Santa Tracker is created and developed by Google, with a little help from Santa’s elves. Need help or have another question? Visit their Help Center to learn more about Santa Tracker.

Related links: