Rex Box – Grip Wrench

I’ve been waiting for this ever since I saw early artwork on the Rex Box (Rex Crowle) blog, Hairyteeth (By the way, you may know more of Rex’s work from the immensely popular PS3 game, LittleBigPlanet). Gripwrench has launched! Rex has been working on this 10 part series for MTV for what seems like forever, and its a pleasure to see his unique character design and animation go live in these longer form pieces.

I can sit and continue how great I think this stuff is, or you can stop wasting time and go watch the clips and read other material on the site right now, including a great snippet on how Rex came up with the character in ‘The Making‘ and some crazy Grip-Wrench’d posters in ‘The Meat’.

So, enjoy: Grip Wrench.

And for extra giggles, check out his myspace.

21-19 Finally Launch.

Melbourne based multidisciplinary studio 21-19 have finally launched their site, full of a plethora of delightful print, motion and even some interactive work.

There is a consistently thoughtful and elegant approach to the way 21-19 execute their work that I find massively appealing. A prime example is their self-promotional and award-winning short film ‘In Motion’. A visual homage to the great game of table tennis/ping pong/after work exercise, it is beautifully composed and paced, with a wonderful sequence of vignettes that reveal layers of gorgeous fluid motion behind a game that can be played with a beer in one hand. The ending – which I won’t spoil – is especially effective, almost like the piece is applauding itself for a job well done. 

I’m only disappointed that there is no direct link/download option for the motion pieces. And that I’m currently on the wrong continent to play ping-pong with the crew.

The Moment, student short film from Filmakademie

The Moment is a charming animated film for the International Festival of Animated Film from Filmakademie students Csaba Letay and Verena Fels. I’ve been aware of the short for a long while now, but it has only just gone up online (in 720p no less!) after doing an extensive tour of festivals world-wide including SIGGRAPH08, Anima Mundi ’08 and SICAF 08.

Its a good example of a student short done well: ambitious – but not overly so – well researched, designed, produced and the students have gone the extra mile to make sure it is seen by a huge audience by pushing it in festivals.

I took a moment to ask Csaba and Verena few quick questions about the short:

So, who are you guys? How many of you worked on the project, and in what capacity?

Hi, we are Verena and Csaba, two ambitious animation students at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg who collaborate on animation shorts, digital crafts and general small-town-survival in Ludwigsburg. The leading core team was the two of us, but we had assistance from a couple other students on special tasks, like particles or fluid simulations. You’ll find the complete team credits on the website.

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