SleepyCabin Animators

http://sleepycabin.com/

Sleepycabin is an animation company started by a bunch of Newgrounds animators I used to follow back in the day.  It interesting to see them all working together now and what kinds of projects they have moved onto.  It's pretty NSFW

Cool Morphing Animation Short

I recently found this strange cartoon online and was impressed by how fluid its animation was, especially for such bizarre movements.  Definitely worth checking out.

Joe Zombie

                                    (Just a warning--the video's a bit gory for a stick animation.)

This is Joe Zombie. It's the first episode in a Flash animation series made by Rob DenBleyker back in October of 2001. This particular video is actually a remake of the original first episode, which was made a 9 months prior, in January 2001.

I remember being in 4th or 5th grade when one of my friends showed this to me. It was super scary and I remember being afraid Joe Zombie was out to get me after watching it. However, It's nice to be able to watch it again now!

When I first saw it, I didn't realize I was watching the remake of the original. The sound and animation in this version are really nice compared to the first and it really shows how much someone can improve their skills in just under a year.

You can find the original first episode here: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/10476

Charlie the Unicorn

Charlie the Unicorn is an animated series that started back in 2005 and has since become an internet phenomenon. After a few years of inactivity they have announced that they are planning to make a half hour final episode.  The video above pitches the project and links people to their kickstarter. Below is a link to the series thus far.

Knox's Korner Klaymation

Even though since I last watched this series on YouTube, the creator, Knox aka Robert Benfer, has gotten into a little bit of trouble with fans, I think that Knox's Korner is a pretty hilarious claymation (klaymation to go with Knox's 'k' theme). It features human-like blobs, which started out as just practice for the 'klaymator,' who go through pretty extenuating circumstances, like getting stuck in the VCR,  or drowning in a glass of water. I've read that most of what we see is improvised as well, so the comedic tint to it is funnier and more clever (is clever the word? it's sort of childish, but fun to watch) because of that. He won 35 awards from Newgrounds from this series of shorts. 

Who doesn't love a good parody?

If you love games like Animal Crossing, as well as online cartoons, then look no further!  A few days ago, one of my personal favorite online animators, Max Gilardi, aka "Hotdiggetydemon," posted his new cartoon, titled as "Isabelle ruins everything."  It parodies the popular Nintendo 3DS game, "Animal Crossing: New Leaf," by showing what would happen if the player's second in command, Isabelle, takes charge over the town.  The hilarious dialogue between the mayor and Isabelle entertains the viewers by basically explaining why a Marxist government wouldn't work in today's world.  I found it to be rather smart, as well as pretty adorable.

Gilardi has been known in the past to be rather controversial in his subject matter, and many of his cartoons involve explicit material, such as violence, swearing, and sex.  This animation, however, is oddly innocent compared to many of his other past creations.  Other than a few moments of light police brutality, the cartoon overall felt very refreshing to watch compared to many other popular online animations out today.  It was mostly dialogue that consisted of little swearing, and a more informative commentary.  The animation is also superb, and the little quirks, such as the way their mouths moved, made me fall in love with this.  If I ever had the opportunity to work with an animator like this, then I would do it in a heartbeat.

2D animation's recent resurgence

So if you're a well adjusted socially capable human being, unlike myself, you may not have known that 2D flash animation has recently made a rather remarkable comeback on the internet. What is Flash Animation? Oh how I envy the social status you have to allow you to be unaware of the wild and sometimes awful world that was the internet during the early 90's. But that's beside the point. Flash animation is, as the name implies, animation created by the program adobe flash. Back when the internet was still in it's relative infancy, these flash animations grew to enormous popularity as the file sizes were small enough to be sent through terrible dial up connections with relative ease. Soon sites that hosted and streamed these flashes like Newgrounds.com became some of the most trafficked youth online. However as the internet improved over the years and live action content was able to be hosted more reliably, this surge of animated content died down almost over night.

With the popularity of let's players on the rise this 2D animation has seen a wonderful resurgence. People with varying ranges of talent are taking to animating some of their favorite moments from different let's play series, and the results are actually fairly entertaining. I'll leave below a few of my favorites just to show you how there is some real talent connected to this endeavor. If you're ever looking for a quick shot of web popularity and don't mind putting in the time 2D flash animation is not a terrible way to go.

Awesome Series : PokeAwesome - Just a Pokemon Battle

The creator of this video is Arin Hanson, also known as Egoraptor. This video is one of many in a series he calls the "Awesome Series". Egoraptor makes parodies of many memorable video games like Super Mario Bros., Dig Dug and more. He started in 2006 on Newgrounds.com and his videos are found on his YouTube account, Egoraptor, today. If you compare this video to another from a couple of years ago, his animation style has improved. I enjoy his videos for the animation and the humor. Especially this current video, "PokeAwesome", which involves one of my top favorite game series. This video was animated in Flash and it took him a few months to complete.  I hope to one day create animations with humor similar to his and an art style I can be comfortable with.

Note: This video contains some swearing... or more than some.