SKAIJO

Skaijo is one of my favourite animators for her hilarious short animations. She posts her work on sites such as YouTube, deviantART and Newgrounds. She works with the program Flash to create pieces with a very distinctive use of character design and animation style.

This is one of her less "comedic" works, however it still depicts elements of humour. Looking at Skaijo's work is very useful for my project as she has skills in producing narrative works even without dialogue. Viewers have commented that the characters are difficult to tell apart due to their similar colour schemes, to which she replied that she grew up in a place where most people have similar skin/hair and eye colour. In my opinion, she has used her fictional race of people well as she has managed to create character designs that show they belong to the same race and culture and has used her knowledge of design to bring each personality out in her drawings and use of clothing/hair style.

This next animation is part of Skaijo's ongoing series "Professor Layton and the Malignant Growth" which is very darkly funny and entertains it's internet audience using pop culture references and surreal characters. I enjoy watching these stories due to the hilarious mix of dark or taboo situations and comedy. In these short animations the characters appear very scruffily drawn which seems typical of an internet cartoon, but rather than being a disadvantage, Skaijo is still able to create expressive characters and convey comedy and narrative.

After looking at Skaijo's work I have begun to draw character designs for my Masque of the Red Death illustrations and will be posting my ideas soon.