ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Robin Davey
What GIF best describes how you are currently feeling?
Well, it’s Sunday night and I’m pretty knackered. So I’ll go with this:
When did you first start making GIFs? What was your first GIF?
I’ve been animating for ages, but about two years ago I moved my site on to Tumblr and started to notice people doing really cool things with the format.
My first attempt was this, after seeing the Avengers:
What attracts you to the GIF format?
Like a lot of creative people I’m unhelpfully self-critical, and tend to lose faith in personal projects midway through. GIFs are just quick enough that I can get them done and uploaded before I start to hate them! Seriously though, they’re a great testing ground for new ideas. And the positive response they get online is genuinely gratifying.
Favorite GIF artists/artists in general?
I have more art heroes than is probably healthy, from mid-century illustrators like Miroslav Sasek and Charley Harper, to great contemporary animation directors like Grant Orchard and Celyn Brazier. But let me shout out some GIF-makers whose work is exciting me lately:
Skip Hursh
Ross Phillips
James Curran
Tom Bunker
Jack Cunningham
Nicolas Ménard
What is your favorite GIF?
Impossible question, but there’s something pretty perfect about this:
What’s next? Any fun projects you are currently working on and can share with us?
For the last six months I’ve been designing on a kids show that I think is going to be brilliant, but it doesn’t air until Autumn this year. I’m about to go back freelancing full time and I’ve been getting a lot of interest in my work for print stuff and online, so we’ll see what happens. Hopefully I’ll finish something more than 40 frames long :)
