My Happy End

I really enjoyed watching this animation which I came across on Short of the Week. The use of stop motion in this '2.5D' animation is really clever and visually appealing. The story itself - a dog finally succeeding in catching his own tail, and in turn, his life changes irrevocably - is quite heartwarming and pleasant to watch. 

I'd really enjoy trying something like this, I like the style of character (reminds me of something but I can't put my finger on what) and the cut out technique adds effect to the story.

The Dam Keeper

I came across this trailer for 'The Dam Keeper' on Cartoon Brew. I was instantly drawn to the style of animation, which was achieved by a combination of TVPaint, Photoshop, and amazing skill created by Pixar artists Dice Tsutsumi (Toy Story 3 art director) and Robert Kondo (Monsters University art director—set design and shading). It looks really adorable, but also somewhat dark in its tone.


This short making of video is a really interesting watch. Erick Oh, supervising animator of short film 'The Dam Keeper', talks about his role on the film which is intriguing to see what goes into this style of animation.

A World Without Limits - Hyundai

This promotional video is also the work of Studio AKA made for car manufacturer Hyundai wanting to improve awareness of their 5 Year Unlimited Mileage Warranty as a series. 
It shows a very different animation style to their 3D animation Varmints but I personally prefer this style so much more. 
The dull, pastel like colours and simplistic characters really appeal to me as it feels like a clean, crisp animation.
This style of animation really reminds me of Dumb Ways To Die, with the style of characters and colour scheme. Both are using a kind of animation that probably appeals to kids whilst giving off quite a professional message. 
I'd like to perhaps learn After Effects so I could do something like this in the future.
This one is part of a series of really nice shorts which are really worth a watch. 
https://www.studioaka.co.uk/OurWork/hyundaicampaign

Varmints

Whilst looking at some of the animations Studio AKA have produced, I came across a trailer this cute looking 3D animated film called Varmints.
The thing that drew me to looking into it was the design of the character which appears to be a rabbit/bear personified. 
It's expressions are animated really fluently giving a real sense of it looking lifelike. 
The details in the backgrounds are really nice as well. The part of the video when the character is looking at the smoke cloud in the horizon shows a vast amount of detail in the grass. It looks as though it would have been effort to do when animating but the effect it has given has really paid off. 
I think it would be interesting to see the full film, I don't often watch 3D animation but this look beautifully done.