Illustrated GIFs with a Cinematic Twist by Rebecca Mock

This past week, I was in Austin for ICON9, an illus­tra­tion con­fer­ence that occurs every two years. If you ever have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to attend, I high­ly rec­om­mend it—there is great pro­gram­ing, great peo­ple, and it’s a great excuse to explore a new city! The first two days of the con­fer­ence fea­tured var­i­ous work­shops, and I attend­ed one called Decon­struct­ing the Ani­mat­ed GIF lead by Rebec­ca Mock. As the name sug­gests, she went through her process in cre­at­ing an ani­mat­ed illus­tra­tion, includ­ing some basic move­ments that bring an image to life.

Rebec­ca is trained as a painter and self-taught in the ways of GIF mak­ing. It’s this back­ground, how­ev­er, that makes her work so compelling—the com­po­si­tion-focused images are like scenes from a film, cap­tur­ing small, loop­ing move­ments that make a big impact.