Toad - Super Mario Bros. 3

Toad is a great example of a very cute character. What drew me to him most of all was his animation (as detailed above). The animation seems very nuanced. He seems to be a little worried, shouting like a kid. He is energetic and excited. He squishes down to a crouching form, a sweet little mushroom boy.

Toad is a colourful, expressive creature. The restrictions of pixel graphics have produced incredibly expressive work and show that simplicity of design does not denote lack of depth. The ideal cartoon form must strike a balance which allows it this depth of character in spite of its simplistic form.

AnnLee

Stills from Anywhere Out of The World, 2000.

"In 1999, the artists Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno bought a manga character from “K” works, a Japanese firm that develops Manga figures. Huyghe and Parreno decided to 'free the image from the animation market', named 'her' Annlee, made their own initial works and invited other artists to use Annlee for new art projects, free of charge. Annlee was given a voice, history and an identity and she popped up in animation videos, paintings, objects, installations, posters and a magazine, soundworks and a book. In the end 28 works were produced by 18 different artists. The project was finalized in 2002 with the artists definitively killing her off (including a coffin) and liberating her from the realm of representation -as they described it- by signing over the copyrights of the image to Annlee herself." (Istha, 2012)

AnnLee is a really interesting use of a character. She was a blank slate - a cookie cutter character with nothing much in the way of distinguishing features. But she became a vessel for a collage of all these different personalities and ideas - she became so full of all this stuff, and yet she was still this blank, robotic character.

1. Istha, M. (2012). Call for new Annlee art works. [online] rhizome.org. Available at: http://rhizome.org/announce/opportunities/58508/view/ [Accessed 24 Jun. 2014].

Disney Colour Palettes

Snow White - 1937
Cinderella - 1950

I saw these screenshots from various Disney films and was struck by their beautiful colour palettes - perfectly dreamy with careful combination of muted and rich tones. These create such a softness, such a delicate, enchanted vibe to the fairy tale lands the films depict with such a vibrancy. The lighter blonde lines in and around Aurora's hair in Sleeping Beauty is a stand out detail which works to make her look ethereal and magical.

Also of note is the stylistic difference - particularly the soft, round look of Snow White compared to the angular design of Sleeping Beauty (look at the difference in their faces!). To some extent this is evidence of aesthetic preferences of the 1930s and 50s respectively, and it's interesting how this affects the worlds the two films portray. Snow White is more foggy and dreamlike in comparison with the sharp, agile fairy look of Sleeping Beauty. Both convey similar stories but have an immensely different style, with lots of subtleties.

Sleeping Beauty - 1959
The Little Mermaid - 1989

Sculptures by Philippa Haines

All photos taken from Philippa Haines on Flickr.

I successfully Googled my high school art teacher. It's fascinating to see her work for the first time - these weird, fantastical figures. They remind me of the film MirrorMask, designed and directed by Dave McKean -  known for his ethereal, spooky, and slightly cartoonish dreamscapes (and his Sandman comic book covers, which reminded me of Anselm Kiefer when I first saw them). McKean and Haines are similar in that their work shares that perfect cartoonish spook feel. This kinda makes me feel like an enchanted little kid being told an elaborate story. It's like a nostalgia for something that doesn't exist - that special kind of excitement when you could almost believe a myth or legend. They also remind me of the BBC TV series adaptation of Gormenghast.

I remember, when I was really young, I had a book about an enchanting woman who lead someone into a forest. I have tried to remember more details about this book so many times in later life and have never succeeded in finding out what it was, and it sounds ridiculous, but I feel like I lost a world. I remember the feeling I would have when I read this book was the most intense feeling of curiosity and imagination and I think my whole body would shiver. I was as enchanted by the book as the character in the book was enchanted by this woman, to the extent that I wanted to jump into the book and become lost in that story's world. I think I actually came close to believing it was real, like my own version of Narnia or Jumanji.

I can begin to emphasise enough just how intense this experience was, but everything else I've discussed in this post evokes a smaller level of that incredibly enchantment, that mysticism and yearning to enter the fictional world, whether the world is directly described or shown, like in MirrorMask or Gormenghast, or merely suggested by a single figure or image, like Haines' sculptures.

Purple Ronnie

Giles Andreae's Purple Ronnie was around when I was growing up and I suppose it was kinda fun for kids to see a cartoon figure that was a very cheeky adult doing cheeky adult things in a tongue-in-cheek way. I like Purple Ronnie's style as he is drawn in such a simple way with smiles and bright colours and other stylings often present in children's books, but obviously is not a children's character. Purple Ronnie's personality transcends his simple style - although I suppose he is a simple character, but there is something very real about him - something recognisable as a part of every adult person. He is a bit like Rupert Fawcett's Fred or Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy in that respect, although those characters are more grumpy and exasperated in their interactions with life - Purple Ronnie is more of a silly celebration of life and the potentially disappointing or awkward parts of life e.g. sex, drinking, friends, etc.

Purple Ronnie is very uplifting as a character. Always smiling, there is no sadness in Purple Ronnie's world, even in the face of binge drinking or body self-consciousness. I doubt Purple Ronnie has any regrets.

Björk shot by Stefan Malzorn / worldmaking

I wanted to write about these pictures because they are really happy pictures to me. They're so vibrant, candid, and cute. Björk is so adept at creating her own magical worlds, visually, aurally, and in her whole self, and I think these pictures convey that sense of fantasy world-ness. All the lucid textures, natural expression & plant life, and Moomin wonderland colours combine in a kinda simple seeming way that's busy enough to make a whole world appear in my head when I look at these images.

Paper Rad's Tux Dog

all images taken from paperrad.org/tuxonthetown

I'm not sure what to make of Tux Dog. He reminds me of Parappa The Rapper - same goofy look and floppy ears. The picture above, particularly, made me laugh. Tux Dog infiltrates the real world in these photos, seemingly causing a little chaos and silliness on the way. It's interesting to see how Tux Dog's interactions with people (appear to) play out. He seems well liked.

It's interesting to note that, in this series of images, Tux Dog is a cartoon entering and interacting with the real world. In most of my work so far it's a sort of opposite - I'm interacting with a make believe world, in which I and other characters exist as cartoons. It's this world which I am then transporting back to the real world to be viewed through windows of pages and paintings. Perhaps, considering this, my work needs to be more expansive, more adept at bringing my dreamworld into the real world. The real world interacts with Tux Dog, but where does my dreamworld interact with real world denizens?