Vesper

Loved this heavily FX driven short by Olof Storm, which chronicles the daily routine of a supernatural entity known as the Vesper, also known as the evening star. His actions are mysterious to us, but a familiar routine to him. Shifting day to night, bringing the stars into the skies with definite intention. If you've evern enjoyed Avatar - The Last Airbender, there's a lot to love here.

Khorkhoreh And Prints In The Snow - Les Gobelins FX Animation Exercises

Second year students at Les Gobelins just recently released their FX movies, 30 second shorts with an emphasis on animated FX and a loose storyline tied in. Created by teams of 5, each group had 3 weeks to design, animate and do post production on their pieces.

Khorkhoreh places an emphasis on fantastical tomb raiding, while Prints in the Snow (Des pas sur la neige) offers a more introspective, bite sized piece unfolding in the woods. Loved it all, and can't wait to see what these folks come up when they'll be given a few months time for production. Expecting my mind to get blown, like it does every year from the Les Gobelins group.

Naoki Yoshibe's Animated FX Reel

Naoki Yoshibe is a relatively new, but decorated member of the anime industry with over 4 years of experience and countless contributions to projects under his belt. Having worked on series and one shots including Halo Legends, Gatchaman, Sengoku Basara and Bleach among others, Yoshibe's specialty lies in the FX animation niche. I personally respect the work these guys do as it's an essential yet under-appreciated craft. This 2 minute reel just serves as a good reminder as to how much good FX work can contribute to bringing any action scene or otherwise to life. Top notch stuff.

Ad Collective Volume V : Chérie 25, Rovers, Heart to Mouth, Pariah, TedX

Welcome back! Ad Collective is a weekly spotlight on creative advertising projects that push the creative envelope. We're not talking mind grating, generic commercials for car insurance and laundry detergent here, rather a spotlight on individuals trying to elevate the art of advertising into more of an art form rather than an exercise in playing it safe and taking no risks.

This week brings us a wide range of amazing projects and experimentation from creative collectives and passionate individuals spanning the globe. This week's advertising campaigns, in order:

• Chérie 25 is a really cool ad bringing a series of illustrative stylish females to life on the streets of Paris and beyond, created by the fine folks over at Mathematic SAS. The limited color palette (Based off of the French TV Channels branding) is incorporated wonderfully into the cohesive promo.
• Amsterdam based collective Hello, Savants! came together to create this exploration of angularity called Rovers, featuring a mixture of hand made models and some post work to bring them to life via subtle motion.
• Heart To Mouth was created by Dutch creative Bart Hess as a reinterpretation of the classic symbol for love, the heart shape. Using a mixture of Latex and quite possibly some left over ideas from his time working for Lady Gaga on her Born This Way album, the result is both strange and tantalizing at the same time.
• Created at the  Köln International School of Design, Pariah was put together by a group of students (Hannes Hummel, Philipp Carboota, Thilko Limbeck) over the course of 3 months using a hacked Kinect and a low poly art style to fit their track of choice. The end result fits perfectly with the tone of the melancholic track.
• Glassworks Amsterdam created this playful and clever promo for TEDxAmsterdam called Create Destroy, featuring the reconstruction of a destroyed balloon installation with some subtle commentary on human nature thrown in for good measure.

Les Gobelins FX Animations

Created by a few teams of students over at the famous Les Gobelins animation school in France, these bite sized films are vessels for FX animation exercises. FX animation entails the work that goes into bringing things like smoke, explosions and other ambient effects to life.

Light on plot but heavy on atmosphere, these team exercises are but a stepping stone towards their final animated projects, which we look forward to seeing in a few years time.

Teams and titles:

• Shoot Out: Batiste Peron, Marlène Beaube, Eve Ceccarelli, Clément Doranlo and Maud Girard.
• Opium: Marion Bulot, Elsa Boyer, Rayane Radji, Guitty Mojabi and Raphaelle Stolz.
• Loosaur: Deborah Cruchon, Myriam Fourati, Jonghyun Jung-boix, Nadya Mira and Laurent Moing.

Kosal Sok's Animated FX Reel Is Stunning

I'm sure most of our readers are aware of this, but in the world of animation there are a ton of different specializations that you can pursue, even more so since the debut of 3D animation. Well French animator Kosal Sok was the head of the FX animation team for Ankama's WAKFU animated series, a beautifully animated show that has yet to be localized for English speaking audiences (Fingers crossed). FX animators are responsible for anything related to spell effects, environmental effects like water, fire, earth, smoke and more, and Kosal might definitely be one of the best out there.

Naoki Araiza Demo Reel

FX Animators are the essential guys behind animating all the explosions, debris, weapon effects, spells and environmental effects in various mediums, and Naoki Araiza is one of these talented specialists. His recent demo reel goes into his work for the fantastic looking Wakfu, an animated series we've covered before that has unforunately never made the jump to Western Shores.

Check out his reel to get a taste of just how well animated this TV series is, featuring a quality bar that is nearly feature length. Naoki won't have any trouble finding a job with a reel like this, I'm guessing.

Les Gobelins FX Showcase

These bite sized, 30 second animations were created as part of an FX animation exercise at the acclaimed French animation school. Teams of five 2 year students all worked for 3 weeks to created these awesome animations showcasing everything they'd learned so far. It never fails to baffle me just how advanced these guys are within just two years at the school, but I guess that's why the school has such an epic reputation. Check out 4 more excellent little animations after the break!