Aardman’s Purple and Brown

Created by Aardman Animation’s Richard Webber and taken on by Nickelodeon… the hilarious and stripped back stories of “Purple and Brown”  are great nuggets of visual comedy. Who needs dialogue?

Get Purple and Brown desktop wallpaper from Nick.co.uk

Musical Honkbarn!

And now for something wonderfully silly… Honkbarn! from Flash animator Todd Ramsay. Honkbarn! is a series of musical journeys through the world of the musical Honkers and the quite-loving Grunchers. The characters are beautifully drawn and the backgrounds have a wondeful hand created quality rather than a solid graphic look. The songs are also catchy little loops and more than a little bit bonkers. Enjoy four instalments below.

I Lived on the Moon

Here’s a rather haunting song from Parisian band Kwoon set to some impressive animation from a chap called Yannick Puig, a French animator living in Valencia, Spain. It features a young boy taking a strange, sometimes sad and yet wonderful trip to the moon.

Puig describes it like this: “A father speaks to his son. He explains how was his life on the moon. A place filled with flying snakes, fireflies and three tailed monkeys.A beautiful place, safe and far away from the human culture. A place for imagination, a place in which you’ll find the entrance only if you open your mind.”

There’s more about the film at Puig’s website

Barton Hill Animation Festival

Based in Bristol (UK) are the Arts and Media Team at Community at Heart. Every year they put on the Barton Hill Animation Festival as part of a regeneration project. The team works with the local community to provide a wide range of creative activities such as art classes, festivals and events.

In 2007 they created some animations with the children who attended the festival.

The Tortoise and the Hare

And an interesting re-telling of the Ugly Duckling story with a twist in its tail.

Marvelous!

Kung Fu Panda from Dreamworks

Here’s a teaser trailer for the upcoming animated film from Dreamworks starring Jack Black as a kung fu fighting panda.

Kung Fu Panda trailer


Via Drawn! and Cartoon Brew

More Spookiness with the Biteneck Beatniks

Curtis Jobling of Frankenstein’s Cat fame has created another spooky kids TV series concept called Biteneck Beatniks. It’s currently in development with a Canadian company Sardine Productions. Hopefully it will make it beyond the development phase into the real world. You really can’t have enough spooky kids animations in my book! Here are a couple of trailers for the series with some smooth music!

Bus Ride and Flowers in Her Hair

Not specifically an animation for children, but just a wonderful animation with a child as the primary character. This short animated film Bus Ride and Flowers in Her Hair won Best Animation at the 2005 Scottish BAFTAs. It’s by Asaf Agranat and there’s more about how he created this animation here

Chuggington Sneak Preview

Coming to kids TV in 2009 is a new CGi train series Chuggington. Catch a sneak preview at their website:

http://chuggington.com/

Consequences

This animation reminds me of the parlour game ‘consequences‘ which I used to play with my Grandma as a boy. It would involve passing bits of folded paper backwards and forwards answering a series of questions without knowing what was written by the other player. At the end you’d fold out the paper and read the composite story which often was bizarre, surreal and utterly hilarious.

Once Upon A Time by Joe Pelling has the same obtuse narrative accompanied by a charming hand-drawn animation style.

One to Watch – Blur Studios

Pixar are the makers of such wonders as The Incredibles, Rataouille, Toy Story and Monsters Inc. And as far as I’m aware they nudged their way into the big animated feature market by starting out with some amazing short 3D animations (some of which are available on iTunes to download). I’m wondering if Blur Studios based in Venice California are heading the same way. Their 3D short Gopher Broke was shortlisted for the Best Animated Short at the Oscars in 2004 and they continue to create stand out shorts including ‘The Gentleman’s Duel’ which I saw at the Encounters Festival in Bristol  at the end of 2007.

The Blur website has teaser trailers for both (Quicktime format)

Gopher Broke 

Gentleman’s Duel

Alternatively there are some full versions on YouTube at the moment…