This series of animated black and white faces is trippy, right? They are the work of Matthias Brown, also known as TraceLoops. TraceLoops found its start when Brown decided to give digital rotoscoping a go, but the time and effort of using a trackpad was unenjoyable. So he took it analogue and began using tracing paper to do things the oldschool way. By hand, he traces over moving images frame by frame in a process which you can click here to see (It’s an impressive amount of work for a couple seconds of hypnotic motion!).
Matthias Brown is unashamed of imperfection. When drawing page after page of the same monochrome face transforming in a hundred different ways, he leaves in spontaneous mistakes like creases in the paper and smudges of ink for all to see in the finished gif. On his blog, he writes, “I enjoy tracing things, it’s never exactly what you expect and starting new every frame means that there’s no way to be perfect. I really enjoy slightly varied repetition, like watching a product line in a factory. I make an effort to leave things to chance from one frame to the next, it preserves a believability and comfort seeing the chaos that personifies human error.”
