The technique I have chosen to research is the flip book and the contemporary artist I found is E Merlin Murray, who is a working artist today. His flip books aren’t titled, but he is posting new ones on instagram frequently. His take on a flip book animation is creating these sort of animated journals in which he uses folds and cutouts in the pages to give his drawing life and movement. Most of his animated journals feature character faces with multiple layers that peel back or move around. The specific one I choose is simply four facing pages inside a small journal or sketchbook an which he has drawn four different faces. He folds and unfolds the various faces so that they combine with each other to make new characters and facial expressions. His drawing style combines a cartooning fantasy subject matter with and anatomical technique. I like his work because it is very unique and it occupies a space between still image and moving image; It’s not quite animation, but it’s not a still images either. My only critique would be the format in which he presents his pieces. He shoots short videos that include his hands folding and flipping the pages. I enjoy seeing the process behind the animated journals, but I also think it might be more effective if he also shot them in a more formal animation format in which we didn’t see his hands and just saw the image changing frame by frame.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BuWeYKaF6Ge/
https://www.instagram.com/e_merlin_m/
