Node is Australia’s premiere annual motion festival, attracting artists from all over the country to get together, share knowledge and generally talk motion. Each year the good folks over at Node run a fun contest to create an Ident for the event. 2019’s theme was simply one word. ‘Fruity’. To be interpreted however each artist decides best.
I chose to create an ode to the Fruit machine also commonly known in the UK as a ‘Fruity’ or for the Australian audience the ‘pokies’. I explored how the machine would make the fruit that ends up on its spinning wheels. Focusing on a watermelon, being moulded, sliced, shot at and put back together again. I used the brightest of the colours from the Node palette to create a children’s toy aesthetic to make the piece playful with glossy plastic and glassy textures. There is a fun but less than subtle nod to Fruit ninja throughout the animation.
I modelled the machine in Cinema 4D before putting the finishing touches in After Effects. It was super fun to play with the 8bit sound track and create some high energy sound design to match the look of the animation.
