“girlsrock“, the last video i’ve posted here, was pretty much the biggest self-initiated project i’ve done. it was dragged on and on for ages, as my full time job and client work were most often put on higher priority – but it’s my first animation work ever and even if it took me ages to get to finish it, i’ve learned a lot and realized this is what i love doing. and because this project means so much to me, i’ve wanted to share a little bit of what inspired me in the process of making it happen.

earthbound / mother 2 for snes
this game is a huge favorite of mine and one of the most original, wacky, and snazziest i’ve played. i tend to favor the odd, creative, and weirdly amazing in games (just as i do in music, arts, fashion and film) and yet still there have been just a few games that i fell in love with just as much as this one.
earthbound is a japanese rpg set in a real-world environment gone mad under the threat of giygas, with meteorites falling and regular people and everyday things going evil… while one boy, named ness, is out to save the planet. there’s no way to try and sum this game up in a sentence, or paragraph, or written explanation. the unexpectable plot, odd enemies, marvelous music, amazing dialogue and the fact ness is out there fighting crazed enemies (who used to be just regular people and animals) made me want to put my superhero cape on.

the jazz jackrabbit series
jazz is the love of my life. seriously. in some weird way those games (especially the first one obviously), their music and artstyle influenced who i am today. greatly. there was a jazz jackrabbit tattoo in consideration for quite a while but at the end i’ve just decided to design my own jazz tshirt instead. ever since i’ve been creating silly little 10 seconds animations in fourth grade, i had a tendency to draw weird rabbits. i kinda blame jazz for this one.

bunnee, my green floating sidekick (both in this video and in my comics and works in general) was first “created” about 6 or 7 years ago while i was strolling around tel aviv with my sketchbook, got bored, and sat down to sketch a little in some park. i have no idea how it happened, but i just sat down and drew this abstract, half angular, half round creature, and decided it’s a floating bunny (ee) which would be my sidekick if i had an imaginary cartoon series. i’ve also decided that bunnee can shoot lasers out of his mouth, fight with kitchen utensils and use his tongue to bitchslap our enemies. so i made him green. i just had to. for jazz.

the mortal kombat series, especially mk9
if you’ve ever played this game (on ps3 i hope) you’d instantly recognize  my little tribute at the end of “girlsrock”. the new xray moves and fatalities made my day when i first saw them.

in my comics and “storyline” in general, there are two kinds of bunneez – the green one and the pink one, and they’re best friends. mostly. but actually this friendship is much closer to being super bloody frienemies, and i’ve always portrayed them fighting each other with forks and knives and slicing each other’s ears open. even though i was going for a cute, girly, barbie vibe in this animation –  i just knew i can’t leave such an important bit of my story / concept behind.
plus i just love drawing blood, hope ed boon would approve this. tell him i said “toasty”.

in those long months i’ve spent on this animation, lots and lots of ingredients were added to my inspiration recipe. some of them were urban art, alexander wang shoes and gloomy bear toys.. others – vegan cookies, death metal, paper dress up games and alpro soymilk. but this was mainly a project that had to be accomplished, a story that i’ve wanted to share, and an idea that had to get out. hope you liked it!

xoxo