This is a collaborative short animated loop I created with the talented animator Hayden James Browne [haydenbrowne.com]. It's part of the 'Breakfast' themed Loopdeloop which is screening around Australia tonight and around the world on dates seen on loopdeloop.org.

This time-lapse of my illustration 'Dream It' is my first video on my new BenkArtist YouTube account.

I can't stop watching it on loop, I love following the progression of one point like a knee or a small spot of sand or water. Even though I’m the one who made it, I still learn a lot from watching my process. It also helps me get past that early stage of any illustration where things just don’t look right. It’s important to work through that and not give up. 💪🏽 

Yep that’s right, Ronald’s back.
You might remember this 2009 animation that I made while studying at RMIT.
Earlier this year I commissioned the awesome musician Will Cuming aka Lanks to make a track to go with Ronald.

Why? After Ronald was finished, I let it sit for a while as I cooled off from a full-on year of animation projects. When I revisited it, I felt it wasn’t quite finished. I sometimes get this notion from my old works, but with this one I knew what needed to be done.  Originally, I was going to have a musical piece throughout the animation, this idea got left behind because of time restraints. 

A few years later I was hired to do a music video for Lanks and Ronald came back into my mind. It seemed obvious to me that he was the right person for the job. 
So after some hard work, here it is: The 2014 edition of Ronald.

It's been too long since I've made an animation just for the joy of animating. Here's the beginnings of a new project I've been sketching in my spare time over the last 2-3 days.

I love having a project without boundaries, rules or even an aim. I consider this project like a moving sketchbook. I keep going over and adding to it, so one thing you can count on is it will look different next time I post it. Enjoy.

I was asked by Crisp Magazine to write an article about the concepts and processes involved in creating the ‘Rises and Falls’ music video for Lanks.

http://www.crispmagazine.com/rises-and-falls.html

It was in our first meeting that I said to Lanks and his sister/manager Lou “I have a few DVDs of music videos I’ve been meaning to re-watch”, I went home and pulled all the DVDs that are full of music videos off the shelf.  It turns out I own 20. I had a lot of re-watching to do.

Being the son of a musician, I was brought up surrounded by music. Animation is a passion of mine and I’m always drawing or creating something, so this project was a real joy for me from start to end. It also helps that Lanks is super talented and I love his music. The fact that I still really enjoy listening to Rises and Falls after hearing it a few hundred times is a testament to how good it is. 

The track has a strong narrative to it; love, tragedy and irony with a powerful build up. On the one hand it’s easy to make visuals to something that already holds so much depth, but on the other hand I was challenged as I didn’t want to just display what was being sung. I decided to create what I refer to as a ‘suggested narrative’.  The animation guides its own story which runs parallel to the track. Before animating, I wrote out pages and pages of notes and mentally formed a lot of imagery containing metaphors and symbolism.  One of the concepts that reoccured in my notes was the idea of a character leaking an emotion or sense of longing. This idea took many forms in my mind before evolving into the mixed media animation and video that it is now.

The animated segments are made up from pencil drawings, inverted charcoal shapes and photos of textures such as leather and metal.  Before Lanks knew much about what the music video would be, I sent him one of the most bizarre messages I’ve ever sent, it went along the lines of “… I’m going to pour paint down your face, shirt, arms, hands, legs, shoes…”. For those shots I did just that, filming it in slow motion then superimposing the paint drip onto the animation. I have to say, I’m very pleased with how it turned out. 

Official video for 'Rises and Falls' by Lanks.

Directed and Animated by Benk.

lanksmusic.com 

Today I finished working on the  RISES AND FALLS music video for LANKS!! Not long till it's March release, stay tuned!

Music by Lanks
Directed and Animated by Benk

I found out about a project called 'Moon Animate, Make-Up!'.
It's a group animation project aiming to re-create an entire episode of Sailor Moon with each 1-10 second shot being re-made by a different animator in their own style.

Obviously I got involved!

Here's my 5 second re-creation.

moonanimate.tumblr.com

A short looping animation I made with my phone, some scrap paper, a pencil and.. a cookie!

Here's two more unplanned animations made in an evening with Pencils, an iPhone and some scrap paper.