Gardening with Terrence is now available on all Angry Birds apps

This is the first Angry Birds Toons episode I worked on since I joined Rovio Entertainment. We supervised the animation together with Janne Roivanen. The episode is available now on all Angry Birds apps. More episodes to come in the near future!

One dessert for every day of the year-Finland

In Finland there are so many different desserts and most of them are eaten on specific times of the year. This is part 1 of the Finnish dessert adventure. 

1. Pancakes in Finland are baked in the oven and then cut into square pieces. They are eaten with wiped cream/ice cream and jam. Traditionally the pancakes are served for lunch on Thursdays with pea soup, this is said to originate in the pre-Reformation era, as preparation for fasting on Friday.

2. Runeberg's Torte is named after the Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg. The tortes are typically eaten from the beginning of January to Runeberg's birthday on February 5. 

3. Lasliaispulla  is associated with Lent and especially Shrove Tuesday. They are available in shops and bakeries every day from shortly after Christmas until Easter. It is a sweet bun filled with whipped. 

4. Mämmi is usually eaten only during the Easter season.  It is made out of water, rye flour, and powdered malted rye, seasoned with dark molasses, salt, and dried powdered Seville orange zest. It is eaten cold with milk or cream.

Tea shops in Helsinki

-Tea pots-

The Ounce
ounce.fi

Fredrikinkatu 55, Helsinki

A Tea Shop from a different era.

The moment you enter you feel like you traveled back in time roughly 100 years. It is a small, dimly lit shop consisting of two rooms that resembles an apothecary. The fist room is the actual shop. On the right wall there are several dozens of big glass jars full of tea leafs with all the flavors imaginable. The shop assistant is dressed in a costume from the same era and knows all the teas by heart. We pointed at a couple of jars and she brought them to the counter, she then shook them, opened the lids and passed them to us. The aromas were amazing. We bought some jasmine teas and the shop assistant wrote down the names of the teas with an old fashioned ink quill.

The second room is the cafe of the shop, its has beautiful, rich decor and here you can order a cup of tea and escape the noises and hassles of everyday life.

The glass display cases all around the shop are full of intricate tea accessories, beautiful china cups,pots and of course tea jars and boxes. All in all this is great shop and the teas we bought were delicious.

The Ounce is a chain of stores also available in Russia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

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The Huone

thehuone.com

Eerikinkatu 10, Helsinki, Finland

A modern tea shop with a twist.

This was the second tea shop we visited that day. It's quite a small but airy shop, with modern clean design, big wooden counter and white wash walls. The atmosphere of the shop also had something from older times, that reminded me of traditional merchant shops.

The tea here is stored in big white paper bags and the shop assistants opens each bag for you to smell the tea leafs. There are over 100 different tea flavors and the smallest amount you can buy is 25gr.

There are also displays with tea accessories, tea pots from China and Japan, as well as beautiful gift boxes.

There is also a small cafe, with a couple of tables where you can order a cup of tea and a dessert. We bought some black tea and green jasmine tea, they were all delicious. Another great shop!

Today at the swimming pool

 Too many people at the swimming pool today

Finland

Sneak peek at what we are working on at Rovio

At Rovio and snow sketches

So its been one month since I started my job as Animation Supervisor at Rovio on the Angry Birds in Finland.

As it was expected there is a lot of snow here so I decide to start a new series of very quick sketches called snow drawings. I basically look out for snow formations that resemble something and then draw on top of the photographs, nothing complicated just makes the journey to work a bit more interesting. 

A lot of angry birds so far...

Clermont-Ferrand collages

A few weeks ago we pitched Electrifying Love, my new short animation film in development, at Euro Connection co-production forum at Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France. The pitch went very well, we got some positive feedback and we are now continuing working on the project. 

I usually put together one collage of photos that I took on my trips but the town of Clermont-Ferrand in France had so many beautiful features that I decided to make three and group them into categories of fountains, windows and doors. I hope one day to use these collages as a research for a film but at the moment they are there for colour and shape inspiration and references.

Electrifying Love update

For the last year I've been developing my new project, a short animation film titled Electrifying Love and I'm very happy to announce that it has been selected for Euro Connection 5th European short film co-production forum at the International Short Film Festival Clermont-Ferrand, where we will be pitching it. 

LAIKA selected by Vimeo Staff Picks!

LAIKA

The full film is available to watch here vimeo.com/54536669

LAIKA is now available to watch online!

vimeo.com/avzourelidi/laika

Yeah new post!

Last month I attended the KROK Animation festival in Russia. This festival takes place on a boat that travels down the Volga river. This year the festival traveled from Saint Petersburg to Moscow with many stops on the way. Here is a photo reportage from the trip.

One of the stops was in the town of Yaroslavl where we had the chance to visit Alexander Petrov's Animation studio. He showed us how he animates with paint.

 In his studio I saw these great boards that they use to hung the storyboard panels and I decide to try and make one myself. 

Ta Da!

This is made out of A1 Black foam board and clear PVC stencil film sheet.

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and here are some watercolor sketches....

Seeing dots and colour

Exhibition of Yayoi Kusama work 

Giant balloon at the entrance to the exhibition

A couple of weeks ago I went to see the retrospective exhibition of Yayoi Kusama work at Tate Modern in London. I wasn't sure what to expect as (shamefully) I was not familiar with her work. What awaited me is hard to put into words. It was an explosion of colors! 


One of my favorite pieces was a painting entitled A Gill (1955). To me it looked like a stormy sea or an old map and strangely the red shapes reminded me of the Hattifatteners in the Moomin books. 


Its a great painting to just lose oneself in. 

 A Gill (1955) by Yayoi Kusama

I was also mesmerized by the Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show (1963). It was an old boat covered with elongated shapes made of fabric and painted white. The whole room was covered in black wallpaper with a photograph of the same boat.

The boat looked like it was frozen it time after a wreckage  and was slowly covered by shells.

Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show (1963) by Yayoi Kusama

The exhibition runs till June 2012- http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/yayoikusama/default.shtm

Spring Chicken

Watercolors & Ink

2012

European Short Pitch 2012 Award

Earlier this month I presented my new animation project, Electrifying Love, at a co-production forum in Maribor-Slovenia. This event was part of the European Short Pitch that I was selected to take part in and it was organized by NisiMasa. 

It was intense four days full of presentations and meetings with film producers from all over Europe.

 To my big surprise I ended up winning the European Short Pitch 2012 Award and yesterday I received my shiny certificate.

          A big thank you to NisiMasa for organizing such a great event!

One more Chuggington update

 During my time on Chuggington as an animation director, I was also given the opportunity to do some design work for the show. In the Badge Quest Share the Load, that is now available on BBC iPlayer, the trainees have to put up posters for Action Chugger's new movie "Light-year Chugger"  

This is the poster that I created for AC's movie.

This how the poster appears on the show.

...and an image capture from the end titles.

This is my first credit as a director on TV! Very exciting!

Chuggington-Badge Quests airing on CBeebies

 The Chuggington Badge Quests that I worked on as Animation Director are now airing on CBeebies and some of them are available on iPlayer - http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01c06vz/

This is a still from Home Sweet Home one of my favorites. 

The first post for 2012

Happy New Year everyone! It's been almost two years now since I finished my film Laika and I've decided that it is time to make another short film so that is my New Year's Resolution.

I've started writing the script and developing visuals for an animated musical set in the English Countryside

I had forgotten how difficult and draining the "creative" process can be, especially the writing...

The project has already attracted some attention as it has been selected for the 

Nisi Masa-European Short Pitch 2012!

As part of the ESP I've attended a script writing residency in the fairy-tale like city of Luxembourg and In March I will be presenting Electrifying Love at a co-production forum in Maribor, Slovenia. 

With a bit of luck and some hard work I will begin the production this spring!

Here is a small glimpse of the upcoming project...

Electrifying Love

New Short Film by AZ

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and here is a new doodle I made...

I was trying out a specific color pallet and creating a pattern that resembles a bird eye view of fields. 

Fields

 2011-2012

Promarker

AnimaCampus Tallinn

Vana Tallinn-Old Tallinn

I've recently came back from Tallinn where I took part in the AnimaCampus as part of the Animated Dreams Festival. AnimaCampus is a platform for animation creatives to attend workshops, masterclasses and also network. It was really interesting and watched some very inspiring films. 

Here are a few photos from the old part of Tallinn.