“Lil’ Red” by Cale Atkinson

By
on

Lil’ Red is a beautifully designed minimalist animated short by Canadian animator Cale Atkinson. Atkinson simply made it to practice his artistic skills. He writes, “My intention from the beginning was to create a very simple and graphic style, while playing with colour and atmosphere.” I’d say he succeeded brilliantly. A Making Of Lil’ Red is posted here.

Also in Cartoon Brew...

  • Animated Fragments
    #22

    animatedfragments22

  • A Creative New
    Year’s Greeting by
    Rafael Sommerhalder

    2013greeting

  • Animated Christmas
    Greetings (Part 2)

    xmas_cards2-promo
  • RickyB

    gorgeous all around.

  • http://seanvec.blogspot.com Sean

    beautiful stuff, cale. well done.

  • Jessika von

    So stunning! It’s like a beautiful painting come to life! Love the wolf’s design and the scene with lil’ red putting him in line :D Awesome!

  • http://bencanfield.com Ben Canfield

    I like the way it looks (feels) embedded – a nice little postcard.

    The 2.5D/Depth blur clashes with the nice illustrations.

    Not bad, it’s cute. Good design!

  • http://artnote.blog.com Stephen

    Reminds me a little of Samurai Jack – in a good way. Nicely done.

  • Tony

    Beautiful minimalism! And I agree it has a touch of Samurai Jack.

  • Baron Lego

    Very, very nice work!

  • http://elioliart.com Some Girls

    Absolutely love this style! Just wonderful! The music was a nice touch too.

  • Griminy

    That is the extreme opposite of “sucks”.
    Beautiful!

  • http://aalong64.blogspot.com Aaron Long

    This is so amazing. Pure eye candy.

  • Levi Ames

    Cale came and did some concept art for a project under wraps at Oktobor Animation for a few weeks a couple months ago. Glad to see he’s finished the project. It was almost done when he showed his work in progress to me. I was already blown away by it then. He’s a humble and very cool guy. Funny too! Good job Cale!

  • JM WALTER

    Beautiful, certain parts reminds me -Hard- of Carlo Guillot´s RED, posted here a few months ago:
    http://www.cartoonbrew.com/shorts/red-by-jorge-jaramillo-and-carlo-guillot.html

  • E. Nygma

    I collect art from Samurai Jack and there is a lot here that is clearly almost scene for scene influence. But I say, If you are going to take a few things..take it from the best. Beautiful stuff.

  • http://www.cale.ca Cale Atkinson

    Thanks so much for the kind comments everyone!
    Really glad to hear you enjoyed my wee short. :D
    And yes it is definitely no secret that I was very much inspired by Samurai Jack (Scott Wills art) in the background style.

    From my ‘Making Of’ blogpost:
    ‘To say the background style doesn’t have a heavy Scott Wills influence would be like saying cows don’t moo. Scott’s work (ie. Samurai Jack) has been a real inspiration to me and in many ways I used Lil’ Red as a way to develop/explore my skills in background art.’

    Levi: It’s so good to hear from you man! Thanks so much for the positive words! Definitely miss you guys back in NZ! Hope all is well and you are animating like crazy :D

    Thanks again very much for posting it up on the site Jerry!