The Wanderer

The range of diversity and creativity of the graduation films coming out of The Animation Work these past months has been nothing short of inspiring. The final short of this year's series, The Wanderer, ends on a high note. Taking us through the lifespan of plant-like alien being the short poses the question, what would you do if you only had one day to live?

Created by a team of third year Character Animation and CGI students, The Wanderer is a strange, ephemeral and beautiful short and a perfect way to tie off this year's collection of graduation films. Congratulations Class of 2015!

The Dilla Dimension

You'll be hard-pressed to find a producer more ubiquitously applauded and dissected than that of the late J Dilla. A formidable beat-maker whose production has been the bedrock of some of hip-hop's most venerated albums and artists, the man affectionately known by his fans and loved ones as Jay Dee passed away in 2006 on the eve of Donuts', his most successful album, release.

The shadow of his influence still hangs heavy and low over the face of contemporary music even nine years since his passing, which is why CGI-studio Cartelle Interactive has created this interactive browser film to commemorate Dilla's last record by transforming it into a kaleidoscopic tunnel-trip through a outer-spacial odyssey of confectionery oddities.

The Dilla Dimension is an interactive, short film that tells the story of two sugarcoated souls and their psychedelic journey through outer space. Each step of their voyage is crafted to a selection of tracks from J Dilla’s classic album, Donuts.

An alternate universe, blanketed with hypercolor sugar and fluorescent glaze, gives birth to an unlikely cluster of donut holes. Suddenly, they are split apart and scattered across a sea of hypnotic, interstellar chaos. But the impossible takes shape when a love is sparked, leading to a desperate search across the universe for one another.

Fibers

Fibers is yet another impressive graduation film from the Denmark's illustrious Animation Workshop school and the first of this year's impressive crop to feature a combination of live-action along with CGI. Whereas previous films have consisted of narrative stories told from beginning to end, Fibers is an interpretive dance video told through both a macro- and microscopic scale of events. Jens Brøndum choreography set to Thomas Ahlmark and Kristoffer Jorgensen's pulsating electronic score is a sight to behold.

Worth Checking Out - Angelarium: Book of Emanations

You might remember our interview with Peter Mohrbacher and Eli Minaya a few months back regarding their collaborative, Patreon-funded project Angelarium. Initially consisting of a series of illustrations depicting the eleven aspects of the Abrahamic Tree of Life, Angelarium is poised to encompass a wide-assorted shared story universe of graphic novels, music, t-shirts and even vinyl collectibles!

The first step to all of that is where Angelarium: Book of Emanations comes in. The first of a collection of art books compiling the project's various angelic and daemonic incarnations  into a compendium of ethereal arcane-goodness, Mohrbacher has turned to Kickstarter to help produce the first volume in this ambitious series. Pledge incentives include hard-cover editions of the book, signed canvas prints, sketchbooks and more!

One of the many tiers for the 'Book of Emanations' project.

Angelarium has been one of my favorite art projects to follow and cover in my time writing for Awesome-Robo. The depth of research, self-discovery and forethought that Mohrbacher has sunk into this series is powerfully evident throughout all his illustrations in this series. The campaign is also working in tandem with trading card publisher Albino Dragon to create a tarot series centered around the Angelarium's inhabitants. Find out more information on the book's page and check out the latest examples of the Angelarium project below the break!

Five Knights Releases The Final Two Installments in the Kin Fables Trilogy

The first installment in Seb and Ben McKinnon's beautifully atmospheric multi-media project Kin Fables was an immensely satisfying and tantalizing glimpse into an alien world of myth back when we covered it two years ago. In the time since then, Five Knights Productions (Ben's talented company of filmmakers) has been hard at work and the fruit of those labors is finally here in the form of the highly-anticipated release of the two-part finale to the Kin Fables trilogy.

Salvage opens with a shot of a starkly bright yellow bi-plane soaring across a vast ocean before plunging into a wall of storm clouds. The lone aviator pilot of the plane manages to survive a terrific crash along the shores of what we can presume to be the same mythic world of the previous film. What he discovers there may both save and invariably change his life forever.

Requiem presents a compelling new dimension into the true nature of the world of Kin and its inhabitants. The film opens with a close-up shot of the unconscious boy who was abducted (saved?) at the conclusion of the first film. An abrupt change in focus shifts our attention to who we can presume to be the very same boy, now a grown man, waking up to a world seemingly indistinguishable from our own. What is the nature between these two, seemingly disparate realities? Nothing is as it seems.

Though this chapter of the Kin Fables story has reached its conclusion, the series' companion graphic novel is still in the works. and I'm all but certain that the McKinnon Brothers have more rapturously-moving installments up their sleeves. If not, I sincerely hope this will not be the last collaboration of Clann's sensational music with the Brother's incredible cinematography. Check out the project's website for more insights into the world and world behind the films, and be sure to follow Five Knights on facebook and twitter for more awesome shorts!

Brainstorm's Diablo Event Unleashes A Host of Horrors and Heroes

Lennart Verhoeff

The bad-ass artistic minds behind the Brainstorm collective knock it out of the park yet again with their month-long redesign challenge, this time reinterpreting the iconic imagery, classes and titular adversary of Blizzard Entertainment's classic dungeon-crawling series Diablo. Many of the results this past week impressively (if predictably) skew across the spectrum of sci-fi action, though a majority of the pieces submitted retain the distinctive gothic-horror flavor of the original.

Brainstorm mainstay Chen Nambiarooran (previously featured for his impressive 'Darth Vader' series) returns with some downright devilish-looking creature and class designs, joined by the likes of Luis Lashido, Tomaislav Jagnijc, and Lennart Verhoeff's impressively menacing profile portraits. It's all there and more, right after the break!

'The Horse Raised By Spheres' is a Rabbit-Hole of Madness

It's not easy being a horse.

Two weeks ago, animator David O'Reilly posted the URL "THEHORSERAISEDBYSPHERES.COM" via his twitter feed. Seemingly in conjunction with a premiere event for this year's Sundance film festival, the address is an interactive text-based web portal to the titular short of a sentient talking horse haunted by his inability to make friends with the other "normal" talking horses grazing on the other side of a field. 

The portal also extends to five other previously unreleased shorts, each one more curiously unsettling than the last. Gaze into the deep, click past the break, and dive into the ineffable abyss that is "The Horse Raised by Spheres".

Chen Nambiarooran Transforms Darth Vader into a Cabal of Monstrosities

Remember that spotlight we did of over 30 Darth Vader illustrations from Brainstorm's fantastic January community event? Well, there's still one artist in-particular whose work from that event I wanted to feature and would be remiss in not highlighting. 

That artist would be London-based Chenthooran Nambiarooran, who went above and beyond painting one recreation of one of Star Wars' most iconic adversaries and instead chose to create an entire series of 30 illustrations depicting Vader in all his aspects as a legion aristocracy of cenobite centurions, limped-legged abominations, and eyeless flesh ghouls prowling the ridges of space to swipe out at any inkling of the light side of the Force.

Chen's paintings prompt an interesting What-if scenario; What if the name Darth Vader wasn't just the title adopted by the fallen and disfigured Anakin Skywalker, but rather an terrible and ancient honorific; Passed down throughout the annals of the Dark Side to be worn only by the most ruthless and tyrannical Sith Lords to roam the darkness of their times? Sort of like the members of Berserk's God-hand, only with midichlorians. Check out Chen's entire series below the break!

Way Out

What happens when our over-dependency on virtual communication takes on a life of it's own? This is the central conceit behind Yukai Du's MA graduation film inspired by Sherry Turkle's novel, "Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other".  The short combines Du's distinctive chalk-pattern aesthetic with beautifully engrossing ambient sound design courtesy of Angus MacRae.

I can't help but reflect on my own over-reliant social media habits after watching "Way Out". The ease-of-access of modern information technology has made us lax in the categorization of that information between that which is edifying and that which is stunting. And what happens when human interactions are lost in the mix? Still, I think it's possible to navigate the ubiquity of the modern age while still bearing in mind what's really important.

Yuki Yuki Goes Sari

What begins with a young anime girl materializing from a patchwork of pastels and brushstrokes à la Duck Amuck and Rabbit Rampage quickly becomes a hallucinatory trip through alternate realities collapsing over one another in a cascade of screen-tearing colors and ambient electronica.

Yuki Yuki Goes Sari, or as it is titled "(ゆきすすみさりゆき) Yukisusumisariyuki", is the creation of seemingly one mysterious animator who goes by the name "kwgt". We've reached out to him to learn more about the technique and influences that went into this clip, though in the meantime, let's just enjoy this psychedelic experience on repeat.

Throwback Thursday: Throne - Tharsis Sleeps

Nicos Livesey's video for UK-band Throne depicts an epic drama of interplanetary conquest and cosmic collision seemingly embroidered into the very fabric of space and time. Three astronauts are sent to the planet Mars on a mission to last open the volcanic crater dubbed "Tharsis" and seed a new foothold for human civilization. They end up getting more than what they bargained for when their bomb punctures a rift in reality, allowing for a whole mess of inter-dimensional prog-rock nonsense to spill out into the void.

What's most impressive is that this wasn't just computer-generated to resemble embroidery. Every frame was physically stitched and digitally-composted in post-production. Our hats off to the folks at Lucky Features and Dazed Digital for creating such a kick-ass music video!

A Little Film About... Thomas Burden

A Little Film About... Thomas Burden is an inventive and inspiring look into the method and little madness of the film's titular 3D illustrator. In three minutes, Burden takes us through a day in his creative life, exploring the humble origins of his subject matter and style ( 60-70's National Geographic meets Argyll Story Catalog), the temperament of his quiet village home of Chichester, his home-life, and the intentions and motivations behind his work.

His pieces capture a vibe of child-like abandon and Clokey-like aestheticism. Burden is a meticulous illustrator and an adventurous tinkerer, smashing shapes together to create oddball creatures and miniature worlds of wonder. Check out more of his awesome work at his personal website, and give the guys and gals at Handsome Frank a nod too for making such a gorgeously Wes Anderson-esque video.

Throwback Thursday: Everything I Can See From Here

Salutations Awesome-Robonauts! I'm happy to report that we've successfully managed to survive another 365-day circuit around the sun. Now that everyone is coasting off a two-day stretch of toast-making and nursing hangovers, let's spare a moment to throwback to London-based animation house The Line's exquisitely bizarre short, Everything I Can See From Here.

Making friends is easy, if you know how...

It's a story as old as time. Two buddies are having tossing a ball around in a junkyard, marveling at the force of Earth's gravity, when a strange creature with luminescent dreads materializes out of the folds of space to join in on their game. To say things do not go as well is an understatement.

This short is a true diamond in the rough. The strong reliance on ambient sound design and pantomimic gestures, combined with the expert balance between soft and hard color pallets is powerfully reminiscent of Genndy Tartakovsky at his best. I'm pleased Everything I Can See From Here has finally made its way onto Awesome-Robo's radar. Check out the making of video below the break, and check out the Creator Project's interview with the directors discussing the origins behind the short!

Infinite Fall End The Year Off Right With 'Lost Constellation'

You might remember us writing up Scott Benson's charming indie-adventure Night In The Woods way back in October. With the successfully kick-started project tentatively slated for release some time mid-2015 on PC and PS4, the lovely folks at Infinite Fall decided to tie off the year right by releasing a thematic side-project to wet our appetites for the game's proper release.

Lost Constellation is a Longest Night ghost story. Travel into the frozen woods in a folktale from the world of Night In The Woods.

This is a supplemental game, which is to say it's not a demo or a preview of Night In The Woods. In some ways Lost Constellation is a lot like NITW, but in a lot of ways it's not. It's a tangent, a side-story, a way for us to explore a bit in a more off-the-cuff manner. We hope you love it! 

After playing through a bit, I can definitely say that retains the same whimsical vibe of inventiveness, minimalistic charm, and dead-pan sincerity of its older sibling. More developers should take a page from Infinite Fall in crafting such wonderful one-off titles.

Download the game here, though as a courtesy, I'd recommend tossing a few extra bucks their way to say 'thank you' for such a nice gesture.

Metal Gear Solid 3's 10th Anniversary Artwork is Astounding

Has it really been a decade since the third installment in Hideo Kojima's landmark stealth-action series?! To celebrate the ten-year anniversary of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake-Eater, Kojima Productions enlisted seven artist to reinterpret the boss battles that would mold the man known as "Naked Snake" into the legendary modern-warrior known only as "Big Boss".

Art by Yoji Shinkawa

MGS3 means a lot to me personally as a gamer. It was my first formal introduction to the series, one of the first games I bought for my PS2, and one of the first games to almost moved me to the brink of tears. A cold-war era, James Bond-infused spy drama with action, laughter, poignancy and heart. It still stands as one of my favorite installments in the series and as one of my favorite games of all-time. Check out the rest of the series after the break!

Worth Checking Out - 24 Killers

24 Killers is a life sim/mystery game where players assume the role of a disembodied shape-shifting skeleton who has been recruited by an anonymous benefactor to act as a ghost hunting private investigator in a secluded island town inhabited by monsters. If that description alone doesn't inspire you to back this, I don't know what will!

The spirits that haunt your house are involved in the best kinds of debauchery. They possess a new person each day to get a little taste of life again, but never have peace. As you slap these spirits out of their hosts, you'll learn about their plight and why they're stuck in this loop of unrest. Who are the 24 Killers?

As it exists now, 24 Killers is "complete", fully playable from start to finish. But in the interest of further fleshing out the components of game-play content, creator Todd Luke has set up a kickstarter page and offered a ton of incentives to coax potential backers, including art prints and a full digital glossary of the island's inhabitants.

The game features a truly inspired premise and art style, sort of like Animal Crossing if viewed through the painterly stylings of David Hellman. The game emphasizes humor and playfulness, balancing a sense of morbid mystery with an off-beat tongue-in-cheek tone. Check out the funding page and see if it strikes your fancy. And while you're at it, play the original browser prototype!

Surreal Geometric Landscapes Pervade In "Mother"

Abstract, surreal goodness galore in Mother, a 3D short directed by Fabrice Le Nezet in collaboration with Benjamin Mousquet and an excellent ambient sound treatment by Azel Martinez. The black and white short has a simulated tilt shift feel to it, giving the viewer a God's eye perspective over this strange, constantly moving world.

Kind of feels like the beginning of a really cool indie puzzle title if you think about it.

SIRENS by Flight Parade

Director Simon Roberts delivers an absolutely gorgeous music video for Flight Brigade's latest single "Sirens". Featuring a combination of live action stop-motion and post-compositing, the video favorably brings to mind comparisons with the music video for The Shin's The Rifle's Spiral in its atmosphere and aesthetic.

Sirens follows the story of a boy and his family as the forest that they call their home is decimated in the creation of an otherworldly mountain of train tracks. The lighting and action perfectly complement the track, a beautiful folk-rock ballad about love, loss, family and sacrifice.

Missing Tiger - A Film As Sweet As IceSugarHammerCream

David Zimmerman's Missing Tiger fits the fashion film bill quite nicely: Beautiful visuals? Check. Plenty of suggestive imagery throughout? Check. A very abstract high level concept driving the vision of the short? Check and double check. With all that out of the way, enjoy this visually stimulating film about making it in the cutthroat fashion industry.

The plot functions as a parable and the meaning is produced by symbolic conjunctions. There are two young women whose relationship is not conclusively resolved: Are they friends, lovers or enemies? Who killed who? One of the two women takes over the symbolic role of the young designer and the other symbolizes the fashion environment in which she has to survive.

I Decided To Leave

It was 9:54 when I decided to leave...Dan Britt's surreal animated short employs the same type of nonlinear narratives that we've come to be accustomed to thanks to Christopher Nolan movies like Memento. We are presented with the past, present and future existences of an individual who finally decides to act on his dissatisfaction with his current life as a 9-5 employee stuck in the daily grind. Devoid of any meaning to his existence, he can no longer bear his aimless route.

The narratives are all intertwined in a manner that is rather abstract at first thanks to the stream of consciousness style presentation, but we're ultimately made to realize that he's already freed himself. Really enjoyed the simple low poly style that Dan Britt employed, a trend that seems to have been popularized by the widely influential works of David O' Reilly.