What if your finger turned into a slug? In Lily Shaul's surreal animated world, nothing needs to make sense

"That didn't, however, hinder the artist's curiosity about a world where they're a completely unavoidable species - not just the squishy creatures we cautiously avoid squashing in the rain - but something that's a bit more permanent, like, for example, a bodypart. This was the idea behind her animated short The Slug Finger: a surreal hand-drawn sequence with an unnerving twist (the protagonist's finger does in fact turn into a slug)."

"Drawing these stories frame by frame, Lily loves to build up entire worlds of imaginative, unearthly characters as they push her to animate in unusual ways: "I love creating fluid, wobbly, exaggerated movement," she says. "I animate digitally but I'm always making things with my hands and using real materials. I love the texture and immediacy of colour pencils and gouache, the vibrant flat colour of screen printing and using embroidery to transform my work into 3D.""

Lily Shaul creates surreal, hand-drawn animated shorts that begin with mundane situations and transform into strange, magical journeys. The Slug Finger imagines a world where a finger turns into a slug, generating humorous and awkward scenarios such as sealing letters and dating complications. Teeth Time reimagines the sink plughole as a portal to another universe, turning ordinary brushing into adventure. Shaul draws frame by frame to build imaginative, unearthly characters and emphasizes fluid, wobbly, exaggerated movement. She combines digital animation with tactile techniques like colour pencils, gouache, screen printing, and embroidery. Location drawing and sketchbooks of ordinary scenes seed her otherworldly imagery.

Read at Itsnicethat