Animation NOW! Handmade 

Animators, like all artists, use the tools that fit them best; that make the most sense to them and give them the results they seek. And it is often the opportunity to use these tools in a particular way that draws an artist to animation in the first place. Some are simply compelled to paint, sculpt clay or move puppets, and that is exactly what they do when the time comes to animate.

Grey areas abound within this zone, however. Somebody labouring away to create hundreds of paintings with brush and oils probably thinks of the resulting film as handmade, in the same way that someone else diligently drawing onto a tablet with a digital pencil does not.

With the exception of Animation General, a hilarious satire of 3D animation, all of the films in our annual Handmade showcase are very handmade indeed. The back-breaking workload completing Muedra that Cesar Diaz Melendez must have endured, the prolonged concentration that Alexandre Roy must have focused on his pin-screen to complete Jim Zipper, or the months of blood, sweat and tears that Claire Campbell must have devoted to making Winter’s Blight, all amply demonstrate the handmade aesthetic that is part and parcel of the world of animation.