For those who didn’t follow me from Twitter, you might not know that I’m a CG/VFX character animator by day. Here are all the movies I’ve worked on!
Captain America: Winter Soldier - digi-double stuff on the quinjet bridge fight, lots of shield bouncing animation
Sausage Party - too many things to mention, all of them suitably unspeakable
Surf’s Up 2: WaveMania - I animated the Fish Milk scene (and I’m sorry)
Hotel Transylvania 3 - lots of random shots here and there, biggest one is the dog running up the kraken tentacle at the end
Aquaman - more digidouble stuff, sharks and fish and Atlantean machines
Pokémon: Detective Pikachu - the Mr Mime scene of him putting out the match, some Mewtwo fight scene stuff, crowd animation
Sonic the Hedgehog - uncredited work on the original version
I pivoted to cute kids TV animation a few years ago so no more movies for me (probably) but it’s been a ride! And having a webcomic to work on has kept me sane throughout~
Stuff I Watched in 2024 – Orion and the Dark (Movie):
What is it?
Orion and the Dark is DreamWorks trying as hard as humanly possible to make their own Inside Out. It's directed by a guy who worked in the art department on a bunch of the Troll movies and is about a boy with an anxiety disorder befriending the personification of the dark.
Things of Note:
Oh shit is that the voice of Luca? They really do want to be Pixar.
And it was written by the guy who wrote... Being John Malkovich!?
Based on a children's book with the same name by Emma Yarlett. Haven't read it because it's for literal babies but what little is up for free looks pretty cute.
Into the Spiderverse really ruined most traditional CG animation for me. The movie looks good but it just can't hold a candle to some of the more stylized stuff that's come out recently. Also, some of the humans look a bit off.
The movie introduces a weird framing device towards the middle that threatens to be pointless and dumb but more than justifies itself by the end.
God damn, Dark. Your friends kind of suck.
I found the third act fight (the kind you see in every movie like this) forced and dumb but everything else about Night and Orion's friendship was well handled.
The movie makes a lot of effort to go in a different direction than you might be expecting early on. I appreciated that.
VERY solid ending that has a lot of fun with it's premise.
Final Verdict:
Fun and surprisingly heartfelt. Not perfect by any means but ~leagues~ better than a direct to Netflix Pixar clone has any right to be. It should have at least gotten a theatrical release IMO.
On the other hand the main character is named Orion and at no point did his belt become important. 0/10 stars.
Stuff I've watched so far:
Orion and the Dark (Surprisingly good. 0/10 stars).
Day Job (Very Australian)
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One thing I noticed about the X Men 97 trailer is that in some scenes the characters appear CG but have this 2d skin over them. And the 2d skin has cell shading. It's like the Ultimate Spiderman video game from the 2000's where it's CG but it has that 2d cell shaded skin over it to make it more like the comics. The big difference is that for X Men 97 it's much subtler. That's the best way I could describe it. I hope that makes sense.
Watch "THE HUMAN FUTURE: Official Trailer" on YouTube
youtube
For some time, I've been an admirer of Melodysheep, who combines science, gorgeous visuals and enthralling music. The first video I saw of theirs, "Timelapse Of The Future" is still a firm favourite of mine, and I loved their "Life Beyond" trilogy so much, I playlisted all three in sequence, so I'm very much looking forward to seeing their presentation of the possible futures and possibilities for humanity.
The Best Animated Feature Oscar My Way (up to 2022)
Here’s an abridged (and slightly tweaked) version of this post, since I started to noticed how flawed it is to have a post go on for that long for Tumblr. BOLD = My Winner
2001 - SHREK (still); Monsters, Inc.; Waking Life (replacing Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius)
2002 - Kept the same (SPIRITED AWAY; Lilo & Stitch; Ice Age; Treasure Planet; Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron)
2003 - FINDING NEMO (still); The Triplets of Belleville; Millennium Actress (replacing Brother Bear)
2004 - THE INCREDIBLES (still); Shrek 2; Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (replacing Shark Tale)
2005 - Kept the same (WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT; Corpse Bride; Howl’s Moving Castle)
2007 - PERSEPOLS; Ratatouille; 5 Centimeters per Second (replacing Surf’s Up)
2008 - WALL-E (still); Kung Fu Panda; Waltz with Bashir (replacing Bolt)
2009 - FANTASTIC MR. FOX; Up; Coraline; Princess and the Frog; The Secret of Kells
2010 - Kept the same (TOY STORY 3; How to Train Your Dragon; The Illusionist)
2011 - RANGO (still); Kung Fu Panda 2; A Cat in Paris; Chico & Rita; The Tragedy of Man (replacing Puss in Boots 2011)
2012 - WRECK-IT RALPH; ParaNorman; Frankenweenie; The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!; Wolf Children (replacing Brave)
2013 - THE WIND RISES; Ernest & Celestine; Frozen; Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury; Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Rebellion (The Croods & Despicable Me 2 are replaced)
2014 - THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA; Song of the Sea; How to Train Your Dragon 2; Big Hero 6; The LEGO Movie (replacing The Box Trolls)
2015 - INSIDE OUT (still); Anomalisa; Boy and the World; Shaun the Sheep Movie; The Peanuts Movie (replacing When Marnie was There)
2016 - YOUR NAME (replacing Zootopia); Moana; Kubo and the Two Strings; The Red Turtle; My Life as a Zucchini
2017 - COCO (still); A Silent Voice; The Breadwinner; Living Vincent; Birdboy: The Forgotten Children (Boss Baby and Ferdinand are replaced)
2018 - SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (still); Isle of Dogs; Mirai; Incredibles 2; Night is Short, Walk on Girl (replacing Ralph Breaks the Internet)
2019 - KLAUS; How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World; I Lost My Body; Missing Link; Weathering With You (replacing Toy Story 4)
2020 - WOLFWALKERS; Soul; A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmaggeddon; Lupin III: The First (replacing Onward)
2021 - FLEE; Encanto; The Mitchells VS The Machines; Luca; either Belle or Summit of the Gods (replacing Raya and the Last Dragon)
2022 - GUILLERMO DELL TORO’S PINOCCHIO; Turning Red; Puss in Boots: The Last Wish; Marcel the Shell with Shoes On; Inu-Oh (replacing The Sea Beast)