Inspirational Artist // The Happiest Monster - Jonathan Kim

 

'The Happiest Monster' is an animation students final outcome when studying for their first year at Calarts; Jonathan Kim uploaded the video in 2006 and I remember watching this all the way back when I first discovered the internet. Back then, it instantly inspired me to start drawing monsters and such, along with crude gross things of course - and could be one of the shorts on YouTube to be blamed for inspiring me to study animation.

The story focuses on a young girl befriended a happy monster, which she suddenly meets one day... the ending is personally my favourite part.

This animation short is very well animated, despite there being clear areas that are left 'unfinished'. The movement between frames flows so well when paired the story, keeping the viewers attention easily. With it's mixture of wide beautiful scene shots to dramatic tall looming shots; it really keeps the eye moving all over the screen. It also contains many 'animation rules' such as squash and stretch and of course anticipation. There is a clear style when viewing this animation short, unique qualities to the artists own imagination; from landscapes to expressions and even lighting. The textures crosshatched onto the frames really give the animation a warm almost 'touchable' feel and really brings the characters into a 3D life on paper. Of course, considering this was animated near 9years ago the artist of course animated this with CEL animation down onto paper. But I really like that, in fact I love it. Being a fan of traditional pencil animation, I'm a sucker for 'hand drawn' processes within this art form.