A nice little Halloween short about a Corn Kernel who has a crush on a cute piece of Candy Corn. This nicely done G-rated cartoon is from L.A. based boutique studio Oddbot Inc., who specializes in doing pre-school animation series. Crystal Stromer directed.

Illustrators David Cowles and Jeremy Galante collaborated on this snazzy promo, titled “Don’t Miss It,” for the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. It kind of feels like these Vic Haboush concept paintings come to life…and that’s not a bad thing.

Here’s how James Sugrue makes cartoons in flash:

“Fly Day” is the latest episode of Simon’s Cat by Simon Tofield, a UK-based director on the Tandem Films roster. It’s refreshing to see animation that hinges everything on the quality of acting, characterization, and observation. Tofield directs our attention towards the character’s personality to the point of not including any color, camera moves, or cuts in the entire episode. Simon’s Cat is also a fine example of an on-line animation success story. In a little over a year, the four previous episodes of the cartoon have reached nearly 30 million pageviews, which has led to a book deal for Tofield. More details on the book are available at SimonsCat.com.

(Thanks, David K.)

Whether it’s the elegant animated navigation of his Flash portfolio site or the visually adventurous commercials and promos on his reel, Max Weintraub’s work has style to spare. He’s a 2000 CalArts grad who is now living and working in Tokyo. I only discovered his work last week when his delightful freshman CalArts film, Dance Mania, featuring Michael Jackson, made the rounds on Facebook. His latest project is particularly interesting. He was commissioned by a Japanese TV network to create thirteen short animated pieces based on La Vilaine Lulu, a vintage illustrated boook by fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent. The website for the project doesn’t feature any of the episodes (as far as I can tell), but I love the simple, charming bits of animation with the girl and want to see more.

Where Dan Meth sees Hollywood updates of classic toy and cartoon properties going. He’s not far off:

(Thanks, Sterling Sheehy)

Tucky Tales is a simple but inventive example of digital “cut-out” animation. The pre-school series for Baby TV was created by Israeli husband-and-wife animation team Eduard and Nurit Mitgartz. They’ve produced twenty 5-minute episodes at their studio Kipod Animation.

Director J.J. Sedelmaier hooked up with design/illustration icon Seymour Chwast to create an online issue of Chwast’s publication The Nose. Animation is simple but effective. The piece takes a humorous look at the predictions that people have made throughout the past century.