I've just gotten home from another Animation Club Secret Handshake Screening. This months theme was Superheroes and I made this movie in three days for it. For some ungodly reason it was the most popular on the night, winning me a stack of DVDs, a week on ArtsHub and the choice for next months topic. I couldn't decide on a topic, so I spun "the wheel of topics" (a spinning wheel like wheel of fortune but smaller with topics on it) which chose Farm Animals... damn.

MY SUPERHEROES THING!! WATCH IT!! I DARE YOU!! :O

For those of you who don't know what secret handshake is, it's a monthly screening in a Melbourne Bar whereby people make short animations on a chosen subject and the viewers vote for their favourite, a lot of my Newgrounds submissions were made for these screenings.

If you haven't seen this yet, you must, It's Blu and David Ellis collaborating on a gigantic animated graffiti project. AM-AZ-ING!!

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Oh and if you haven't been to my website yet, you really should. It's good for you!
www.neilsanders.com.au

here's a new loop, I couldn't live with the last one that was made by cheating... forgive me Luis :3

so... how have you been?

I've been working on my website... I've got the design and layout right, but it's taking a while to add the content. It only has one section so far, have a look... http://www.neilsanders.com.au/silk.htm l... but don't look at it using internet explorer, because it's a piece of dirty poop poop. Yes that's right, it's the poop that a poop would do if a poop could poop a poo out of it's pooper.

with halloween coming up I'm going to throw down the gauntlet, lets see if you can come up with a costume better than this...

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how about this... designed by Jason Krugman, Firefly 870 LED Protoype pairs 870 wind switches with 870 super-bright white LEDs to form an 8'x8' grid. As the wind blows over the piece, the wind switches trigger each LED individually, creating a stunning sparking effect in response to the wind. It looks fantastic.

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I will now take my leave, and leave you with this hopping fellow.

Happy Birthday Lochie, you crazy fellow!
We have put together a collab for you and two other pagans but are experiencing technical difficulties... I'm sure it'll be up soon.

Anyway, has anyone noticed how computers suck?
David Merrill did and he reinvented them!
Check this crazy clever siftables junk out! :O

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It's enough to make your head spin! 80

Hey Newgrounds! How's it going? good? I hope so

A friend of mine, Lisa Currie is running a website called the scribble project which is an great place to mess around while trying to find inspiration for a new project, and to look at other peoples creative madness! There are a bunch of sheets which you print out and scribble responses to a bunch of questions. I'm loving them, they really get the old brain juice pumping. Some of these concepts would also work fantastically as ideas for collaborative animation projects too.
http://www.thescribbleproject.com/

I've been watching a lot of visual experiments in animation lately, and this is so simple an idea but mesmerising.

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And this is a silly way to design a font if you ask me. Oh and don't be tricked by this into buying the toyota car, it's all just a subliminal trick to get you sucked in... PUT YOUR CHEQUE BOOK AWAY!!

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I've just animated this loop of skulls, I think other than the couple of projects I've already committed to I'll just be making loops for a little while. I'll only be getting a couple of free hours here and there to animate.

I'm back at work, and busy as hell. All hell has broken loose there, from 9am on Monday morning until the end of the day today (Friday) I've been chasing my tail trying to stay on top of things. I didn't notice that my prelude clip for the play Skull in Connemara got put on the front page, it was a great to see it there, I really wasn't sure what you guys would make of it. I've been enjoying reading reviews, especially the serious ones because it's "such a serious clip" and having fun taking the piss in responses.
Here's the footage of it being projected through the set during the play for anyone who's interested.

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Loads of great stuff has been uploaded here this week, I'm loving Rutgers Zimmi ep.1(bring on episode 2), and WTF_Action really got my bloody pumping with it's pure insanity and sublime animation.

And I found a guy from Sydney called Dave Carter on vimeo who's series Psychotown is hilarious

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Anyhoo, I'm making a clip for the next Animation club meeting on the 28th of July this month. This months theme is the circus, and I had an idea which I turned into a storyboard, but I'm not sure if I want to do it yet. I might just do something experimental with no story, acrobats flying around the screen or something...

Oh and Kweaks and I are collaborating, playing tennis with a flash movie sending it back and forth. It's going to be fun to see where this goes, creating something and seeing what the other person does with it.

and now... the blobby morph gif

HEY!!

I made a new movie that you should watch!

It's in a very different technique to my normal cartoon stuff, which I'm not too sure about.

It's an animated prologue for a play a friend of mine, Justin Stephens, directed called A Skull in Connemara. To really see it properly you have to see the play itself, the animation is designed to be twin projected on to the back wall of the set before the first act, so that the audience views it though a set of grave stones and a layer of mist. It looks freaky, it's a emo's dream come true.

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I'm really exited about the technique I used. It was inspired by a film I saw at the animation festival called death and the mother. It was commissioned by channel 4 in the UK.

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Caroline Leaf, working with the National Film Board of Canada is responsible for most of the groundbreaking works in these sorts of techniques. Here's her film The Street which is created using paint on glass!! :O

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Here's another favourite of mine out of the UK, which better suits the Newgrounds kind of audience.
If you don't know of David Shrigley, YOU SHOULD! He's both funny and insightful.

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Anyway, this is getting out of control... so I'll leave you guys be.
RAHHHH!!!! D:

I've just uploaded a new movie, it's just for you, cupcake.

I've been at the Melbourne International Animation Festival (MIAF) for the past week and boy are my eyes tired. Saw some awesome films, and interestingly a hell of a lot of it was created by hand, without the cheaty computer whatchamacallit stuff.

The highlight for me was a new film by Estonia's master of animation Priit Parn.
Here's one of his other films, in three parts. It's long and highly surreal, but god damn is it good!

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Oh, and yesterday I saw a film on here that rivals anything I saw at the festival.
The Ballad of CrippleKane by AlmightyHans

Look at the dog, he's bulking up to become a professional wrestler. Dumb bastard.

but never too busy to say hi to you guys!
HI YOU GUYS!! :D
I think that makes it time for somebody to beat me to death...

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Check out One Big Morphing Orgasm on Youuuuuutube!!

The big project of making an animated prologue for my friend's play is going ahead, we set up twin projectors and tested projecting them through the set onto the back wall and it looks the bees knees baby, it's going to be spooky as hell. Lots of silhouettes and rotoscoping involved so it won't look much like the stuff I normally make. I've just finished watching Schindlers List trying to get serious and get a stronger feel for black and white cinematography. I didn't realise how much the film would get to me, (tears my friends, tears) and just how amazing the film work is that film. Now I just want to curl up and hide under my bed for the rest of my life, but first I want to smash in Ralph Fiennes head with a hammer.

The Melbourne Animation Festival is on very soon, I've got a festival pass so I plan to be a part of the furniture of the place. Maybe I'll see you there? Not if you see me first? that's just rude.

I'm also making a quick animation for this months animation club screening to the theme of cupcakes, and would you believe that the pink guy below is the star of the show? I know! CRAZY!!
http://theanimationclub.com

Volstok Telefunken are a "motion faktorie", and they have been pumping out these cute clips of monsters getting around town. There are at least 91 of them, and I'm hooked.
WAIT!! What the hell is that red guy doing to her finger?! :O

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how about this one?

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I uploaded a new movie a few days ago about pants... I suggest you watch it.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
497253

I made a part for goatman's latest fresh collaboration... I suggest you smell the freshness?
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
497705

What I'd love to see is a pair of trex's in a ring boxing each other. You'd have to tie their mouths shut so that they can't bite each other, or maybe even strap them into braces like they had for hannibal lecter in silence of the lambs. But imagine the hilarity, they'd be just like a couple of namby pamby girly men slapping away at each other with their crappy little arms.

This freaked me out, how about you?

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I have news! I'm going to be making a game with Kajenx and Waterflame... hopefully.
It's been hard to try and get in contact...

I'm making a two minute clip as a prelude to be projected at the start of a friend's play in August. Yesterday we looked at setting up the projector so that they don't clash with the rest of the set. We're going to project the animation using twin projecters from one computer, I've just been buying a second graphics card for my old mac to make it dual display. Fingers crossed it works...

here's a looping arrow, which symbolizes our futile search for direction in life... pffft HA! :D

Tell me, why do you still refuse to wear a dress?