It leaped out at us from the Watersprite programme and it’s already massively popular all over the interweb: blogged, Pinterested, doing great at several festivals. Filmmaker, illustrator and graphic artist Robert Löbel pulled his animated short WIND together in under a year – it was his graduation project at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. We spoke to him about his work.

Do you always lay golden eggs, or do you suffer for your art?

I totally suffer… the hardest time for me is in the beginning of making a film, when you only have the first concept sketches. I always try to speak with everybody about my concepts. If they like it, I know that this is maybe the way to go. But often you recognise all the conceptual bugs and you get used to it more and more with every explanation of the film idea. I try to be patient and not to put out the first thing what comes to my mind, but maybe I should do that sometimes to get more output.

Why did you choose to move to Berlin – it must be difficult to stand out in such a hotbed of creativity/wannabes?

Oh no, it’s totally cool… For me it was more a personal thing, because my girlfriend lives here in Berlin and we had a long distance relationship for a long time. So i decided in 2010 to make a motion design internship in Berlin. Yes and I’m still here, we’re still together and I meet a lot of animation experts, and everything is great at the moment.

Do you see your future in animations or more towards something like McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern?

Originally I wanted to do a comic book for my diploma, but in the end I’m lucky that I made a film. It totally depends on the situation and the story. I would love to make comic book or more illustrations, my sketchbook is full of little stories which I collect for bigger animations. But I like both visual directions – I don’t like to separate them. In the end, comics books are like cinema in your head. I got a lot of inspiration for animations out of comics.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in animation, and trying to get their work seen and loved as widely as your stuff?

Puuh! That’s not easy to say! Animation can be a very frustrating and a long process. It’s not about creating one or two frames, you have to create thousands of them. I think you need to be very very patient! And during that process don’t forget the fun about it and it’s totally worth the struggle.

http://www.robertloebel.com/INFO

httpvh://youtu.be/m7u0ALhZtJE