Hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas! It was really nice to see family and friends. I also got lots of presents, and..... look what I got! I'm not showing you what's inside, but I'll say that I'm very happy to have this book. I really appreciate the honest and diligently executed mechanisms. It'll put smile on your face. Very inspiring in so many ways. You're the best, Jeff!

The Pop-up Book of Sex
Illustrations by Balris Rubess
Pop-ups by Kees Moerbeek
Produced by Melcher Media
2006

I found a couple of awesome awesome paper sculpture illustrated books at a Half Price Books years and years ago. The pictures just blew my mind, and told myself to look the artist up, but never did until a few months ago. I was very saddened by what I have found out about him. This year is the 10th year since he passed away. I felt shocked. Not only his works, but also the journey he took as an artist in 49 years of his life is truly inspiring and intriguing.

Here's a good reading about him, but basically, he was very into comic books early on, became a clown when he was an young adult, ran a shadow puppet theater after he got married, and then became a paper illustrator and an author. You can pretty much see all his life experiences reflected in his works: humor, terrific story telling, playfulness, drama, mastery in  compositions, color, animating the characters and cutting paper. I'd like to celebrate and share his exquisite paper art before this year ends. Click the images to see them bigger.

 

 

 

 

 

I finally received 3 copies of "GRIMM TALES for YOUNG and OLD" I ordered from Amazon UK, and have been reading it. I was delightfully surprised that the cover has nothing but my artwork, no additional fonts or logo or what so ever. The books came with pretty red book markers which all were placed on 'Little Red Riding Hood' story. I'm about half way now, and the book is incredibly easy to read. I read the stories to my 8 year old son in his bed time. The author's writing really makes me feel like I'm telling a story rather than reading a book. There are a few spots here and there I skip for my son just because I need to do some explaining, and I'm not ready yet. Other than that he's been enjoying the stories very much. I have read other translated version of Grimm Tales, but Philip Pullman's version makes more sense while still keeping all the silliness, raw brutality, magic and humor, and therefore I can picture better in my head. It makes me wanna make a paper illustration for every page. This version is to be released in US soon, but it won't be the same cover I did.

So cute! The very talented animator Matthew Young (http://www.mymymy.co.uk/) from Penguin Books made a short animation with my paper sculptures.The voice is the author himself. I can't believe it!

One of the things that I love about paper is that you can make pretty much anything with it. You can even make movies, too. Here are some links that give me great inspirations.

Click here to see Animation trends
Check out Construction paper animations
Learn about Cutout animation

Hedgehog in the fog (1975) by Yuri Norstein

Les Trois Inventeurs (1980) by Michel Ocelot

Silhouette animation (1926) by Lotte Reiniger

Tutorial using Adobe After Effects part 1 by Paper People Jokes

Tutorial using Adobe After Effects part 2 by Paper People Jokes