Erin Brume Erin BrumeAbout ❤
❤ Hello! I'm Erin Brume and I make video game assets!
I favour paper cut stop-motion animation but I also use digital compositing techniques. 2D isometric assets are my favourite to make as their faux three-dimensional form gives you more visual information than regular top-down graphics and also allows you to play more with light! Pre-rendered graphics ftw!
Style-wise I've been working in a cozy, cutesy, bubblegum aesthetic that I don't quite have a name for yet. It's kinda like Y2K UPA revival, cutecore but with a handcrafted and sometimes graphic feel? Candycut? Gum Wrapper? These are my working titles.
My assets are great for developers who want to appeal to both the older and younger generations. My style is modern, creative and evolving but it also inspires nostalgia- mixing retro and modern.
I have a sincere love for old school paper animation techniques and their history. They bring a magical, nostalgic layer to an artwork and paired with modern technology, I believe them to be a relevant and valuable means of expression today.
My goal is to bring traditional paper cut animation to the forefront of the animation genre whether in games, film or fine art! ❤
❤ What I love about the history of paper cut animation is seeing how the medium evolves to express the vision of each new artist. New techniques and apparatus are invented all the time, building upon what's come before.
To overcome limitations like a lack of depth, we see artists like Yuri Norstein creating space by shooting through the different layers of a multiplane camera (pictured left). To remedy stiff, unnatural movements animators like Hu Jinqing use replacements and avoid firmly hinged joints. Hundreds of these little steps and discoveries have been made over the years to grow the artform into what it is today.
As a medium, paper animation has a relatively short but fascinating history. Beginning in the 19th century with devices like the zoetrope, flipbook and praxinoscope, paper animation actually predates cinema by several decades! It appears all over the world, finding its start in ancient art forms like Chinese shadow puppet theatre, dioramas, and traditional regional papercrafts. One extremely influential early pioneer of the artform is Lotte Reiniger who championed silhouette paper animation her whole life.
Paper cut animation is the kind of art form that you can spend a lifetime practising and never run out of new things to learn or ways to express your ideas. It's one of the cheapest and quickest forms of animation so it's perfect for beginners. However its breadth, potential and charm often proves irresistible to professional animators as well. All it asks of you is a little patience! ❤
Image credits:
Hedgehog in the Fog (1975), Tale of Tales (1979), The Heron and the Crane (1974), The Fox and the Hare (1973), By Yuri Norstein and Franchesca Yarbusova.
The Fight Between the Snipe and the Clam (1983) By Hu Jinqing.
Thumbelina (1954), Cinderella (1922) By Lotte Reiniger.
