In February 2021, the team celebrated Fred & Eric's 10th birthday. To commemorate a decade in the animation industry, we launched a brand new website and also commissioned this short cel animation as a showreel opener.
This personal project was created in collaboration with Dennis Schuster @dxtrtheweird who envisioned the brilliant illustrations, which were then brought to life with seamless cel animation by the talented @giuliafrixione. Read more about this project below.
Our Process
Our initial brief for Dennis was to create 4 illustrations. One for each founding member of Fred & Eric, plus an ampersand design. We were also keen to represent a woman, animal and a strange juxtaposition of two random objects! The final requests were for one illustration to be created in Dennis's trademark pixel style, and if another could look as if it was melting.
Ever the professional, Dennis managed to interpret our brief and send over this shortlist! We were spoilt for choice.
Tough choices made, we were ready for colour options. As with everything sent over by Dennis, we loved all of them. But decided to go for the pastel pinks and blues.
Cel Animation
Illustrations complete, phase two involved bringing these illustrations to life in a seamless loopable animation. This was a job of the super talented Giulia Frixione.
Using traditional frame by frame cel animation, Giulia interpreted Dennis's illustrations into moving forms. Injecting them with life and character. Giulia shared her rough work in progress at various points. Giving a glimpse of how her seamless transitions between the contrasting imagery would flow from one to the next. The result was an expertly combined animation featuring our vision of mismatched imagery, into one fluid and beautifully animated sequence.