Ektopia

It’s never been a secret that I’m crazy about all things Pictoplasma. I’ve mentioned the books on numerous occasions before and they could well account for the very reason I’m so interested in character design…they are almost like bibles to me. A while back I emailed the guys asking for information about Pictoplasma 3. To my disappointment the 3rd book wasn’t on the cards for the foreseeable future. I was gutted, I wouldn’t have any more of those classic spongy covered Pictoplasma editions to add to my collection any time soon. However, there were hints of some interesting projects that were being planned and also the news of a self published title of some kind. After their fantastic Characters At War project they announced their Characters In Motion project, which would include a dedicated 2 day festival in Germany. Anyways, I didn’t really think about it for a while till I checked out the Pictoplasma site a while back and was greeted with a photo of a book and DVD…there it was, the self published work that had been mentioned, Characters In Motion. It’s actually really great to see the Pictoplasma brand evolve and also to see the characters coming to life, not just from the page but now on the screen. I’ve never really had a problem seeing them move myself, even the 2D images in the 2 books have always been full of motion for me.

This DVD really takes it to another level though. This DVD includes more than 60 animations from loads and loads of great artists and weighs in at around 3 hours of animated goodness. As with all new collections I was blown away by the verity and diversity of the animation styles on show. Most of the animations were new to me but there are some that I’ve already seen. There’s too much on the DVD to talk about really but there are a few that I have to mention. It was amazing to see Dalek’s Space Monkey characters coming to life with the punk rock backing; absolutely insane. Monkeyhub’s JCB song is there in all its glory and it was amazing to see it prior to it getting any kind of non-internet media. Two of Tokyoplastic’s animations are included and seeing Drum Machine on a large format screen is a real experience as is its soundtrack. Also included is Gareth Howell’s How It Was That We Got To Be Angels. I had not even hear of Howell so seeing such an incredible animation was a great moment for me. You know the feeling; something just clicks with some things that you see and hear and this was definitely the case for this particular animation. The soundtrack did it for me, I loved the way that the characters voices were like distorted radios that take an intense turn when the story does. Brilliant. This collection is just perfect in every way.

Then there’s the book. It’s just like a mini-version of the original Pictoplasma books (including the spongy cover!) so I got version 3 after all (kind of!). It’s laid out just like it’s big brothers too, loads of great character illustrations from many of the animators from the DVD. The bad news is that due to the fact that it’s a self published limited run you’ll have to get a move on if you want a copy, they are getting down to the last remaining copies…you’ve been warned. Get your copy of the book/DVD direct from Pictoplasma and remember that the original books are still available via Pictoplasma as well. Anyways, here’s to many more Pictoplasma publications in the future.