My website

I just put my website on-line!
This is the link to it:

http://www.valentinagrasso.com

My "angry lady" animation

This a little animation I've been working on lately in my spare time...I really like this character I created, and I focused a lot on her facial expressions and their variations, to make the animation look quite comedic.
I like the lady's 20's look, and I hinted that she could be a jazz singer or something similar in those times (I imagined her whole story while I was drawing her...).
I like her cheekiness and her hot temper, I wanted her to have a lot of character! It was good fun to draw her...= )

Some new character designs and drawings!

I got back to work lately...been developing some characters for few little animations I'm working on. These are some of them!
I'm having fun, I'm drawing loads and animating loads...catching up for the lost time!
I'll be posting my new animations soon! = )

2D flash animator for Loolatopia - Superhero Street!

Here is my latest animation toil...I've just finished working on this music video for kids, Superhero Street. I've done this job for Loolatopia, a lovely american children publishing company, based in Chicago. It was entirely animated in flash by myself, but the characters were provided by the company's graphic artist.
This video will be spread around, posted on websites for kids, and shown in all the public events that Loolatopia periodically organizes, which always involve all families united, parents and children. It's meant to bring loads of positive energies and vibes to all those who watch it.
I enjoyed working on it, although it's been quite a long work...but it's just so nice to see it all together now.
The song played is part of a CD that Loolatopia published, which contains many catchy children tunes, performed by the band "Dave Hamilton and the space cadets".
Nice stuff, you can buy their CD on line as well!
I've got another animation on schedule for them, which I'm gonna be starting soon.
I'll post my work in progress anyway! = )

Illustrations and final layout for wedding invites

Here is the finished version of the wedding invite I did for my dear friend Debbie!
I've posted the illustrations I did first of all, and the final photoshop layout of the card... She loved it, which I was really happy about. I enjoyed it!
Just for record...the theme of the dragon and elf was suggested by my friend, who purposely required a dragon and an elf for her wedding invites (as she's a dragon freak!). I just wanted to point that out in case anyone who sees this starts wondering why I chose such a weird theme for a wedding, also because it's well known that I love my fantasy creatures!
In short...it wasn't me this time!!! ; )

Hand drawn animator at Chase

This is one of the scenes I animated at Chase recently for the animation shortfilm "Samurai", which the studio has been making for the History Channel.
It's been really amazing to work at the studio as a hand drawn animator, and I enjoyed it immensely.
The project was really cool, I love the character designs that the guys created and the characters themselves, as well as the story and the backgrounds, which were absolutely fabulous!
A marvellous project indeed...

Smilies animation for Empress Stah!

This is the second half of our animation for the fabulous trapeze artist Empress Stah, we (me and my friend and colleague animator Sarah) just finished the work this friday, so I thought to post it straight away, cause I'm really happy about the result!
She wanted us to design a number of smilies and animate them, with basic emotions on them. Then show them on the screen repeated as a pattern, across it. She chose the song Video killed the radio star to play on the background, and she wanted the ending to show her face popping up with a glich effect, spinning around the screen.
We had loads of fun in making this animation, I loved designing the emoticons and animating them! Probably because I love emoticons...( =
Well, hope you all enjoy it too!

Flash animation for the fabulous Empress Stah!

Well, this is work in progress as well, although a short one. This is the first of the two short animations I'm doing for the fabulous trapeze artist Empress Stah, well known for her amazing performances around the world. I'm working on this short animation project with my friend and colleague animator Sarah Dexter, who also attended the animation course with me last year. So this is only partly my merit, and I thought I had to point that out. She did the first half of this short animation, the bit where Stah appears from the Nebula and stars...which I think looks amazing! I animated the second bit, with Stah making her magic move!
She thought it would have been good to repeat it three times as the music (which is the tetris game one) goes along. She wanted the character to represent herself as an avatar image, the ones you find on websites that should be a kind of cartoony charicature of yourself. I think we came up with the right image. She could see herself in it a lot, which was nice to hear.
This animation is gonna be projected on a big screen at the opening of her next show on april the 5th, and I'll surely be there to witness it!
Now we're just about to start with the second animation she asked for...I'll post that one as soon as it's done! ; )

Some character designs, and my artwork and life drawing compilations

These are some character designs I've been drawing in these latest months. Some of them were for few animation projects I got involved into and some others were ideas of I intended to develope into animations...



Here is another long compilation of my artwork... It includes illustrations, character design drawings, graphic design works, and few storyboards and comic strips. Some stuff was already published on my blog, but this compilation sums up a bit of everything, so I thought it was useful to have! I'm using it in my showreel's DVDs as well to represent my artwork, and I think it gives a good idea of my style and skills.



And here is my latest life drawing compilation, which contains the latest life drawings I've been producing by going to evening life drawing classes.
It's such a basic thing to do for an animator! And it's never enough...

Flash animator at Bold Creative - Hippy Tagwagon and Culture Wall!

This is the latest animation I've done at Bold Creative for the documentary based on their public event for children "find your talent", which took place at the Museum of Childhood in Tower Hamlet - London in January 2009. The animation represents a white room, which was assembled at the event with all its white furnitures, which gradually got covered with drawings, scribbles and doodles by all the visitors. In my animation the room becomes a true art installation by the end of it. I've been cutting up loads of graffiti bits and details, and pasted them in every single corner of the walls and furnitures, and the final result is pretty...intense I think!



This is one of the latest animations I've been working on very recently. I did it for Bold Creative, and it's for a documentary based on the public event for children "Find your talent", which the company organized in January at the Museum of Childhood (Bethnal Green - Tower Hamlets - London), to which I took part to, helping out over the two days it went on for. It was really fun. The children were so happy and enthusiastic! Two lovely days...
The animation has been inspired on what the kids at the festival were saying about Bold's wagon, they thought it looked really hippy...
So I animated two hippy kids riding it!
It also follows the style the documentary is being made with, black and white, with a stop motion cut.

Sceneries from old german and dutch engravings (works from my final dissertation)

These above are some of my favourite works I carried out for my final dissertation at college (at the time of my Academy of Fine Arts degree).
The dissertation was based on the engravings of the 14th and 15th century by some dutch and german artists of the time.
One of the main ones was obviously Albrecht Durer, who was a brilliant and illuminated painter and engraver, one of the greatest of his time, and upon him my dissertation was mainly focused.
I principally focused my attention on the backgrounds of these engravings, which obviously reflected deeply the society and the time in which the works were conceived and created.
I truly found that element one of the most fascinating within that microcosmos of masterpieces, and that's why my eye went closer and closer to those scenaries and backgrounds, as to scan and probe every single little detail enclosed within them, just as a microscope would do.
These works reflect my long study upon those ancient prints, and the feeling that accompanied me while I was going deeper and deeper into their dimension.
I find very interesting the analogy between these works and my final project, in terms of graphic style, as I think it shows clearly.

Colorist at Partizan Lab for "Violent and young" by Iglu and Hartly

I worked at Partizan Lab with other colleague animators from the animation course on this music video, we've been all busy coloring lots of scenes in the final push of the making of the animation...our help has been essential! It was nice to work all in a team with my ex classmates, it was good fun and a precious experience workwise.

Flash animator for "Eli's first day at playcentre"

This is the first animation project I worked on together with other classmates from the animation course. It was for a playcentre in Camden, and it was sponsored and commissioned by the Camden Council. We've been given the characters, and we had to animate them. It was fun. The children and the playworkers in the animation are based on real chldren and playworkers from the playcentre.
We went to visit it some time after, and it's been nice to meet them in the flesh, after having spent all that time animating the characters...