Bagpuss creator Oliver Postgate: A YouTube tribute

Oliver Postgate, the creator and narrator of Noggin the Nog, the Clangers, Ivor the Engine, Bagpuss and Pingwings, among others, has died. Here are clips of his creations that entranced generations of children.






from The Guardian

Russian animator Yuri Norstein: "Tale of Tales"

Sketch idea for 'Alien Tales', (working title)





I am working on a script for a 5 minutes animation.

On a remote planet lies the island of Kelpifera. Despite being surrounded by sulphuric acid sea and built on a bed of stinky seaweed, its main attraction are the many fish restaurants
popular in the whole galaxy. The fish is produced industrially in a gigantic under-water factory...
For this sketch I decided to play around with Photoshop, as I would like to become more comfortable working with it.

Head Notes


Concept illustration for a documentary about perfume, currently being developed by Nicoletta Polledro . Eventually the illustrations can be animated to play as 'chapters' for the different parts of the documentary exploring the nature and effects of perfume in the social sphere.

Carpenters Cover

For the upcoming exhibition by shop-around artists we were asked to modify a Lp cover...Looked at the local record store through the 50 cents bargains, and this is what I found. The Carpenters and their light and dark side was a good starting point, so I worked with collage and paint, and fun to do....looked at anorexia nervosa
to understand a little more the tragic circumstances under which Karen died, is just a horrible way to go, such a western decadent sickness...

Ice characters animas: Speedy


Ice cream characters animas: Speedy from Cesare Davolio on Vimeo.



Little Flash animation test, based on chs posted previously, see below, more to come...

Winds of change

A new entry for Threadless, the theme is Democracy. I was thinking how the notion of democracy in many nations is warped by stifling bureaucracy and ruthless economic interests...a new perspective is needed, some fresh air to bring about a change in how we live.

Kika & Bob in Vegas




I have bee sitting on these designs from the 'Kika and Bob' series which I worked on, together with my 'Comrades' (see links) and was completed last year. Art direction is off course by the mythical Fons.

The scene represented the arrival and raise to financial success in America by the many immigrants in the early 20's. It starts with the hopeful little guy stepping out of the boat and beginning as a simple shoe polish boy and ending up fat and rich in front of his shoe empire....This was a rare occasion where I got to work on some (minor) characters that did not have to fit in terms of style into the actual look and feel of the animation. The exception is the charcoaled remains of Kika and Bob after opting for the wrong option, again....

Ice characters





These character sketches and backgrounds were made for a popular ice cream company to enhance their site and attract a younger audience. The idea was to have several 'islands' inhabited by different ice cream characters and would be an opportunity to play and learn about the different flavors. Unfortunately the ad agency that asked me to develop these concept sketches was rather uncooperative and in the end it did not work out, so I post these just to remind myself how cool it would have been to see it all animated....

For Caroline Ellerbeck I have made a small animation test (only the left elephants are animated so far), based on her book 'Yndee', the name given to a baby elephant born at the Amsterdam Zoo.

Sooo Hungry....




Mmmmmhh, well, yeah,...some are luckier than others, and if you can have burritos than you are very fortunate indeed....


Speldernis



Quick doodles at the children playground 'Speldernis' on a lovely summery day....

Here we go again....

When will we ever learn??? by becoming Prime Minister yet again for the third time Berlusconi, which already possess the majority of private Tv stations will now also have indirect domain over state owned Tv, that means he is going to control over 90% of Italy's media. Having said that the blame for this disaster lays at the feet of the majority of the voters which through small mindedness and ignorance have opted for the utopia of easy wealth, something which Berlusconi has accumulated in years of muddy business deals and corruption...we are royally f****d!!

The Choo Choo train


Here is the almost final design: after some adjustment to fit the tee I had to 'edit' the design and remove some extra rails and landscape, also the 'rollator' had to go...

If you like it, please take a moment to vote for my t-shirt, thank you! you can vote here

Old fashioned fun

I am working on a fun illustration to be entered on the excellent Threadless tees site , the current theme, yes you've guessed it, is 'old fashioned fun', i'll post the final design as soon as it is done...

Ariadne animations

Cultural project commissioned by Jeanne van Heeswijk,
see also previous entry below, for my Flash animations based on a real person and related infos see here

Auto boy

Bicycle boy

Whistler boy


Flash animation (this is a longer version, the final one will be much shorter,) for an upcoming commercial website, great fun to make! the character design is from the multitalented Bobby Pola, sound design is from Frank Burks. More characters animations to follow...

Madd modelsheet 02


Few versions of Dudu', the rabbit goddess....

Potato head

Old concept character sketch for a cautionary tale about an enthousiastic party-hard little guy who wants to have a good time, goes partying and ends up getting waisted on drinks and drugs.

Ariadne


These are preliminary sketches for a cultural project which aims to involve the inhabitants of a large elderly's people institution in the south east of The Netherlands.

I have been asked to create a virtual character, Ariadne, which is the identity of the site, custom built for this project to enhance and stimulate communication between the 700 and more people living in this place.

She is the hostess and the mediator, and accompanies you in the various phases of the login and profile making, participates in the online discussions and the uploading of stories by the members.
This character is based on a real woman, Eva van Welzenis, who acts out her role as Ariadne and periodically visits the institution to initiate the slow process of bringing people together who have very little or no computer knowledge.

I have drawn her and defined her look and style, as well as using very flat, plain colors to be used as the main color palette on the site. It was quiet difficult to think of a character that is not 'hip', but still has a presence and 'feels' comfortable.

After this process I have imported all the illustrations in Flash and made simple animations, moving gently her head sideways, looking up, pointing, showing some photos or writing. The animations were very tricky and much more work that I originally planned, and that meant adjusting head positions or add face expressions directly in Flash to make her 'flow' from one pose to the other, which I have done with different degrees of succes. I will upload the animations as soon as I am finished. This kind of work is quiet unspectacular and laborious, nothing any commercial person would be interested in, but the process of understanding how a character which is very much steeped in reality can be made to move on the screen has been a very learning experience...

Heavenly Goddesses



I found this amazing book on Bhuddist art, I just could not resist its huge reproductions of these incredibly detailed sacred paintings, they are such an inspiration...I am thinking to make a ledge on the wall so that it can be displayed in all its glory, a sort of mobile poster setup...and the all family loves it! :-)

Groping in the dark

Spring is almost here and underground creatures are beginning to stir from their winter sleep deep down in the bowels of the earth...

Madd poster

I am planning to make a webcomic, time and energy permitting, and here are the main characters. Madd is the woman, she's a hippy liberal type that wants to save the world but only cares about herself and Dudu' is a rabbit which has divine powers, she will change Madd's life forever. The dog is also female and her name is Bo.

Cave girl


She certainly enjoys her popcorn in the cool shade of her cave...

Walk-Cycle (In a hurry)


Finally I have made the first walk cycle for this character, (click on the image to view it) which was great fun to do and helped me to understand a few things: I imagined in fact that I was going to shape tween the legs as I thought it would be quiet a straight forward movement but when I tried it soon became apparent that I had to tween it frame by frame....last but not least, I have changed the movements of the legs from the previous model sheet. I did this because I think the legs bending so much and the fact that she's dragging her feet gives a better sense of the character.

I have to add the left arm, which swings wildly over her head, and then a cool moving bg...I have a track in mind for the music as it dictates the rhythm of the walk, but for the moment this is as far as I am....