Whenever something new come out the Animation Workshop, you’re always in for a good short. I was pointed in the direction of quite possibly one of the best shorts I’ve ever seen, The Backwater Gospel.
The film is visually amazing, the style reminds me of Luis Cook’s ‘The Pearce Sisters’ that came out a few years ago, but this has taken it to a new level. It’s a nice fresh look, beautifully stylised, all the characters are textured in a way that makes the movie look like an illustration, and they’ve kept things simple, in terms of the mouth shapes, which adds a lot to the appeal. They’ve also used Flash to animate some things, such as the blood, and some major animation, such as the crowd fighting at the end – and the way they’ve managed to compile it all together is simply awesome. Check it out:
Their blog has a lof of their artwork on it, but also kicking around on Vimeo, there’s a couple of ‘Making Of’ videos, and it very interesting to see how they’ve managed to do some of the stuff (the way the Hobo was modelled really impressed me). Check out the blog here -: