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Well Hello! It's been an awfully long time! I hope you are all keeping safe and well during this difficult period. I'm posting here because I am very excited  and proud to announce that 'Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth' has been released on Apple TV+!! Why is this a big deal? It is my very first project as an Animation Supervisor for one thing, which threw up a whole load of new challenges and experiences my way - I'm very proud of the result - and it's just a beautiful piece of film to boot, ranging from design to story to colour... It was made at Studio AKA and I couldn't have asked for a nicer, more talented bunch of people to work with. So to watch you will need Apple TV+ BUT DO NOT FRET there is a free 7 day trial - so why not use up the trial to watch this animation - it also gives you an excuse to watch anything else on there too :) Aside from encouraging you to watch the film, if people are reading this post, then  I would also encourage you to follow me on Instagram as, even though I post somewhat rarely, all my news and artwork goes there now. Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy and share the film with your friends and loved ones! Stay safe, 'Till the next

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I now have an Instagram account (better late than never) that will run alongside the Tumblr for a bit, but then replace it entirely, so if you would like to keep following my work, feel free to follow me @laurentrossiart :)

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“Laika’s newest animated feature has added an official title, “Missing Link,” a projected release and a full key voice cast with Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson joining the already-announced Hugh Jackman, Zoe Saldana and Zach Galifianakis.” READ MORE Fiiiinaaalllly X’)) Shame we have to wait a whole year to finally see it, but at least it’s now been announced. I worked on this project for two years as a facial animator. As some of you know, Laika does Stop-Motion animated films - real, tangible puppets that are moved by hand a little bit at a time on enormous physical sets and photographed to create that illusion of movement - but the process for the facial animation might be unfamiliar to you.

The faces are animated in 3D in Maya on exact 3D model versions of the characters. These faces are then printed on a 3D printer to create a ‘kit’, which a lot of the time is shot specific... so the ‘stage animator’ will get a box full of ‘brows’ and ‘mouths’ (face is divided in two sections unless a ‘fused’ face is needed for special occasions) which they have to replace onto the puppet every couple of frames.

The stage animators animate...

...on 1′s (24 movements for one second of film), but the faces can generally be animated on 2′s (12 different shapes per second). In some instances the face will also be on 1′s if there is a lot of movement happening... so you can imagine how much printing material is needed for a whole feature film *o* The printed faces are all processed by a large team of QAs who work to make the faces all nice and clean and then are checked by the librarians that they work in sequence before giving them to the stage animators.

On this project we were really able to push the facial animation - working with the stage animators, supervisors and director, we were able to lock down a performance and play to camera - meaning that you can design the shape of the face in a way that is appealing from specific camera angles - giving it some nice, full, fleshy animation : ) I spent the majority of my time animating Zoe Saldana’s character in the film. I was involved in the design process of her expressions and the way her features moved and their ranges, and creating the library of shapes that other animators could use. I had the opportunity to meet her and show her the work we were doing (she’s so nice ^^). Having worked in 2D, 3D and now Stop-Motion, it is really cool to see all the different processes, pipelines and methods, and in terms of animating, how the approaches differ and how they can influence the other mediums. With stop-motion it is a verrry laborious process... but you can’t beat holding a little printed face that you made in the palm of your hand ^^ So yeah - check it out next year ;D ‘Till the next I used to write a ton about my work back on blogspot - stories, thoughts... on Tumblr not so much...

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I’m a 3D guy… but don’t want to limit myself so I made a reel just for my 2D work :) Includes a test I did last year for a friend’s project. Happy New Year!! 

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Amazing how different scanners perceive the same coloured paper :’)

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Hey! Just wanted to share this really awesome Web Comic! Click HERE to read the whole thing. I really love the art style of this - the main character is visually changing depending on how she feels or the situation she is in, and that coupled with the lively poses and mise en scene AND good story means fun times for the reader n.n

I participated in the 2017 edition of Hood To Coast, a 200 miles relay that goes from Mount Hood, Oregon to Seaside, on the coast and the experience was so special to me that I wanted to draw a comic about it.

These pictures were first published on Instagram, which is why the format of all pictures are square. It was drawn and written really quickly because I wanted to do it while the events were still fresh in my memory, so I hope you’ll forgive the messy drawings and the many misspellings. 

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Originals and prints of my figure drawings are available HERE

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 Some Kauai pics n.n

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The Other Art Fair in Brooklyn was a great experience. It was my first time exposing my work in a serious capacity and although the preparation was quite stressful, the weekend went well and I was happy with the success I had :)

Some of my favourite pieces were sold, which is a weird sensation as they are now on the walls in people’s homes, but I was happy to make some $$$ to pay for the whole trip and of course have less to carry back :’D An awesome surprise was when a lady bought my favourite piece she told me that she had attended a talk given by the Chief Curator of Saatchi, Rebecca Wilson, in which Rebecca had picked me out (as well as a few other artists at the Fair) as one of the artists to look out for!! *o* You can see that video here. I come in around 8:42 I believe n.n

As always, originals and prints are available here; https://www.saatchiart.com/laurentrossi

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I’ve been selected to be one of the participating artists at The Other Art Fair in New York from the 1st - 4th of June!

I will be exhibiting and hopefully selling my Life Drawing so if you are in the NYC area, pop by! For anyone wishing to to attend I can hook you up with free entry :)

Thanks as always!

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Colleagues! n.n

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Stéphanie loves to run :) My first attempt animating on a Cintiq! It was super fun to use - I think if/when I get used to the Cintiq/TVPaint combo, I’d like to try and do some more in depth 2D stuff :)

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It’s been a year since I left Illumination Mac Guff in Paris to work for Laika. This reel is a collection of some of my work over the three and a half years I was there. Films include, 'The Secret Life of Pets', 'Minions' & 'Despicable Me 2'. Many thanks to everyone at the studio who I had the opportunity to work alongside and learn from - it was a pleasure!

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