For today’s 2D Wednesday, check out this really cool spot called ‘Havana Heat’ which is a “steamy love letter” to a  used book selling site called Good Books in the cleavage-heaving language made famous by Mills & Boon.
Books are available through the online store at usegoodbooks.com.
A graduation film made at Vancouver Film School (2015), 4 weeks of production.
Directed and animated by Nata Metlukh
Sound design by Julian Gallese
Official selection:
Spike & Mike’s Festival of Animation
More about Nata Metlukh: notofagus.com
More info and updates: facebook.com/notofagus
Robb Pratt who animated the two beautifully animated Superman tribute shorts Superman Classic and Bizarro has done it again with a brand new piece starring Flash Gordon ! All animated in 2d! Traditionally on PAPER no less!
Someone give this guy a feature deal already!
Incidentally we interviewed Robb a while back and he told me about the process on Bizarro:
 …the animation is traditional on paper, then scanned into the computer. No clean up, just tied the drawings down very tight. From there I scanned them into the computer and painted them in Photoshop. The BGs are pure digital – all drawn and painted in the computer. I used Final Cut Pro to composite everything together. At the end, I exported sequence images from Final Cut into AfterEffects to apply the anaglyph 3D effect. I think that covers everything!
Also here’s a little bit of pencil test from the film as well for you to drool over.
Check out this brilliant short film by Cal Arts senior John Cody Kim that follows 4 animation students trying to hit their deadlines for their films which goes horribly awry when discarded drawings attack! It was well directed, sweet and I was enthralled with the story. Such a great lil’ piece of film for a student. Enjoy!
Cal Arts student Seth Boyden‘s final thesis film is a fascinating view into the life of a stone as it travels over the course of millennia, facing nature’s greatest obstacle: human civilization. This film had me actually interested in it and it drew me in which isn’t always easy to do with the billions of other things to attract my attention> it’s wonderfully animated, well designed and the color palette is whimsical. I’m quite sure we’ll here more of Mr. Boyden very soon! Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X2m2WueNcU
Check out this beautifully 2D animated spot for Coca Cola done by Psyop Studios!
The Duncan Studio was commissioned to do the 2D animation/efx and ink/paint who collaborated with Psyop, from rough sketches and blocking down to inked and painted final cels. In addition to the characters being hand-drawn, colors, shadows, and highlights were also added in the final hand-drawn animation phase. While animators at Duncan Studio focused on character animation, Psyop added additional effects, color trails, smoke, dust, and more, all in 2D.
Mark my words, very soon some studio exec is gonna suddenly have a genius idea of bringing back 2d features. Wait for it… it’s coming any day now!
You can learn more about the Man and Dog Coca Cola spot here.
