Airimation: The fine art of animating air

Last year, we had an opportunity to do some animation work. It was a fantastic break from what we usually do, and a chance to branch out a bit from our illustration and installation work. One question kept being thrown at us. "What does this have to do with balloons?"

Well, it really didn't have anything to do with balloons. Animating Oreos was all about NOT working with balloons. We had finished a book that we were working on for a couple of years and simply needed to look at something else. That little diversion into Oreogami and then the successful series of the Cookie Chronicles (part 1, part 2, and part 3), left us hungry (pardon the pun) for a chance to do even more animation.  

While we were in England a couple weeks ago, we took a little side trip to Bristol before heading home. There, Kelly, Michael and I met up with Jim Parkyn, Andy Woodland and Adam Cook and we put together the following proof of concept balloon animation test. While this was just a rough test that was rushed together in two days, it was a great way to try out some ideas we had. We expect to be developing this a bit further down the road.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZfV-V8HyhM

You'll notice the theme we chose for our test. With Balloon Manor around the corner, our minds are focused on under water scenes. (There's still time to join the crew.)