Unlike submission-based design contests, the Tournament is a battle format where emerging designers flex their skills before a live audience. It requires competitors to rapidly perform as their computer displays project onto large screens. Competition rounds are 15-20 minutes each – fast and furious. It’s a dance of visual artistry accompanied by DJ music, an MC host, and the influence of active bartenders.

Each tournament event features competitions in 2D, 3D, and Motion/Animation design. The winners of each competition in each city are flown to New York to compete in our annual Global Championship.

The event will take place for the first time in Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil, and our creative director is approved for pre-selection which will take place on August, 20. The challenge is huge and the competitors are very good but we’re confident and looking  forward. The 8 guys who pass the first step will show everything they know on September, 03.

We’re ready for the fight and hoping to come back with good news for you! :)

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Very interesting how they mixed techniques. Despite being a 3d short film, they impress using 2d when detective is lost in thoughts. It seems random, but looking better we notice that they managed to turn into visual language. This film has a good humour, well done script and charismatic characteres. In my opinion, it’s the kind of work that worth watching.

“It took about a year to complete the film from the story development until it was rendered and done”, they said to Cartoon Brew.

38th Student Academy Awards – Animation (Bronze Medal): Avner Geller and Stevie Lewis
“Defective Detective,” Avner Geller and Stevie Lewis, Ringling College of Art and Design, Florida The 38th Annual Student Academy Awards ceremony was held on Saturday, June 11, 2011 at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, CA.

Dressed up as their characters from the film

Following the trend of stereoscopic images we’ve seen on 3D movies, we had an idea to make a short tutorial to teach you how to apply this technique in 2D illustrations done in Photoshop instead of seeing only on video and photos.

This technique uses the anaglyph image system, these we see the 3D glasses with red and blue lenses.

The technique is simple to execute and provides a great result.

 

Dowload PSD

Example of illustration made using the technique described in the tutorial:

Click in the image

Show us your work!

By now, you all should know that I’m completely partial in favor of 2d animation. More than that, I’m totally crazy about it. Even though you can discuss taste, in this post based in logic and reason, I’ll try to explain why 2d blows my mind.

#1 Organic, visceral and with a personality

Usually, in 2d animations, the final result reflects a lot more of the characteristic trace of the source media. Higher fidelity to the concept or the original comic means that we are getting closer to the creator’s imaginary world.

The quality, density and style of a trace or painting tell us much about a particular artist. Even inside a certain work we can notice a plastic variation that can bring up to us additional information about the emotions that the artist wanted to show at the time. 2d animation is always more visceral. It’s the trace’s feelings and personality in motion. 3d, given a few exceptions, follows some of the rules imposed by a physical and real environment, like proportion, perspective, lights, textures, etc.

You can notice that the 3d animations that are considered to be more dashing are the ones that purposely try to distort that. In 3d, it’s quite difficult for us to create a plastic variation that brings up personality. Meanwhile, 2d has plenty of it.

#2 Work segmentation

It is clear that in any big production, regardless of the number of its dimensions, the work is quite segmented. The more the money invested in the film, the more the people will have to dedicate themselves to more specific parts, kind of like on an industrial line of work.On the other hand, in smaller productions, the 2d allows that something of quality can be made by few people, without the need of a great processing capacity.

“Oh, I need water and clothes and fire and hair in my 3d animation.” You, sir, are screwed! Either you find someone who can do that, or else you’ll be spending the next 25 years studying tutorials. 2d may not represent things so photo-like, but you’ll still be able to do your job, even though you’re not able to find a hair render.

2d animation is resurrected in the digital. Through vector environments, any John Doe can quickly create his own 2d animation on a simple PC. 3d allows that as well, but in much more specific occasions and in much smaller scale. That’s without mentioning the hardware needs that a three-dimensional environment requires. I once heard a story about a girl from Mèlies that didn’t deliver her 3d short because rendering it would take 22 years!! (ok, I guess she was a bit naive).

#3 The classics from our childhood that are still alive in our unconsciousness

All right, that’s not a great rational point, but so what? It’s a fact that the memories from when we were younger are very important and are the key references that are going to build the artist’s imaginary and sentimental universe. I spent my whole childhood watching 2d classics, and that’s why I associate much of this technique to the good old magic days from childhood, when everything seemed enchanted and possible. As we grow older, we become less and less imaginative and, at the same time, more and more connected with formalities and commitments of everyday routine (I suffer from that a bit less than other people, but at the cost of being called childish, inconsequent, eccentric, etc). Summarizing, 2d still holds that magic aura.

#4 2d does, 2d shows

It won’t do any good if I just stay here rambling infinitely without any proof. If you’re not crazy about the two dimensions yet, watch these animations. I regard them as the crème de la crème of the two-dimensional sequential art. If this doesn’t work, just forget it, just go get sick watching Tim Burton’s Alice in shitty stereoscopic 3d and quit bothering me, haha.

I expect I don’t have to say that that these movies are more than recommended: