Celyn And Nexus Take A Ride With Wagon Christ

Acclaimed production company Nexus' directing talent Celyn has created a promo for Wagon Christ's triply new track Chunkothy.
This promo provided Celyn with the perfect vehicle to showcase his amazing flair as both an animator and illustrator, taking us on a syncopated journey through the surreal world created for this great new track from Wagon Christ's eagerly awaited Toomorrow LP (for which Celyn also created the album sleeve).
A 2D animation created in Photoshop, Celyn hand-drew an amazing succession of beautiful shapes and objects, setting them in a four-way mirror to create dynamic symmetrical patterns which not only draw the eye in, but also form a hypnotic narrative that pulses to the rhythm of the track.
From the minimal beginning with four cubes revolving in time to the beat, the animation builds to a crescendo of kaleidoscopic shapes and forms as we watch a procession of Mexican cats, helicopters, robots and more emerge and navigate their way through the psychedelic landscape.
Animated in a series of loops, using the four-cornered mirror design, the promo is the perfect visualisation of the far-out Toomorrow land.
Celyn added: "I basically wanted to make an animation as close to something printed as possible, in line and colour. My initial inspiration was the old-fashioned see-through lightbulbs, but mostly I just did as many random pattern and as much weird stuff as I could possibly make in six weeks.
"Frankly, there needs to be more animation that features helicopters in bubbles, Mexican cats inside bouncing globes turning into houses and catheads that turn into glowing light bulbs. For the colour, I had a small palette of CMYK swatches I'd chosen from the print job which I used. It was as simple as that really. No gimmicks, no tweeny motion tricks, no CGI and no animatic or storyboards. I felt it had to be spontaneous and I stripped it back to the essentials.
"The ultimate end was to make a live mix of the animation - editing it like a live action film made sense as all of the footage could be manipulated in real-time to focus on the flow rhythm of the track."
(KMcA)