Verne on vacation is online!

As promised, here it is!! At last, online! 

"Verne on vacation" is a short I've been animating with Alfredo Cassano and Sylvain Marc for Cartoon Network in 2009.

It was made in 3 months and won the Pulcinella award for best tv pilot last year. It's currently being considered as a tv feature, which is definitely a great news!

The animation is all made on Flash. Frame by frame traditional approach, good old brush tool. 

(...yeah, and is there anything I haven't made using flash lately? :) I swear, I DO have some pencils on my desk!)

These characters were so much fun to animate. Simple shapes allow you to push the posing, play with extreme crazy looking drawings and focus on what you want to communicate. 

You know those days when you wake up in the morning and just can't wait to start drawing? That was what happened to me when I worked on this film.

Again, a huge thanks to Sylvain for creating such an exciting project, being a fantastic director and a lovely friend. 

Leila and news

from Leila Blue, vol.2 - © Mondadori

(click to see it full size!)

Oh my, sorry for the ridiculously long silence here... But yes, I'm alive and thankfully very busy! So much has been going on in the past few months, some very exciting projects I look forward to share with you.

However, nothing I can post here yet because of that "old friend" I'm sure everyone knows very well: Mr. Non-Disclosure-Agreement ;)

So here is another illustration I did for the 2nd book of Leila Blue. The 3rd volume was published err.. last month? Two months ago? I've sort of lost my sense of time, anyway I'll post some pictures from it very soon.
I'm working on the 4th volume now, which was supposed to be the last one *but*...! Apparently little girls are really loving Leila's books, so there's going to be plenty more for them to enjoy in the near future.

Speaking of illustrations, I've also completed "My Monster Burrufu". I'm happy with the way it came out and I hope to see it on paper very soon!

Right now I'm storyboarding on a really cool show for Cartoon Saloon, I actually just came back from Kilkenny and it was lovely to spend some time there with my old friends. The show is directed by the amazing Jez Hall, it's always a pleasure to work with him, he's such an inspiring and fun lad.

What else, oh yes! Eventually, I will soon be allowed to post "Verne on vacation", the short film I animated with Alf and Sylvain for Cartoon Network a while ago. Yay! So stay tuned, I hope you will love it as much as I did.

In a couple of months I will also be doing a 2-weeks storyboard seminar for the students at CSC, the same animation school I graduated from. It's my first time at teaching and it's going to be great fun :)

Hope you all had a fantastic holiday, talk soon!
Ale