Wandaland by Richard Noble

Produced at the Royal College of Art, Wandaland by Richard Noble is an intoxicating blend of woozy sound design and rich environments rendered with exacting detail. Combining traditional hand-drawn animation with 3D models, Noble’s portrait of a reclusive (fictional) animation tycoon and his abandoned theme park relates how obsessions and compulsions can overtake an imaginative mind.

An abandoned theme park reveals the obsessions of its creator, John Wanda. [Wandaland by Richard Noble]

The animation of Richard Noble

Richard Noble is an animator and graduate of the Royal College of Art. Creator of The Sam Story (2020) and Wandaland (2019), there’s a fine layer of foreboding beneath the glassy surfaces of these films. His 2D compositions evoke the spartan visual style of such artists as Chris Ware and Nick Drnaso. So too, does Noble choose to craft his stories in a way that belies complex internal forces tugging at his characters.

Noble’s “lifelong love/hate relationship with popular culture” casts an ominous shadow in The Sam Story (2020).

Based, in part, on the converging life histories of Walt Disney and Howard Hughes, Wandaland (2019) delves into themes of “…identity, mystery [and] human psychology.”

From the artist: “The two films I have made at the RCA, Wandaland (2019) and The Sam Story (2020) converge on a few themes: identity, mystery, human psychology, and my lifelong love/hate relationship with popular culture. They're also the most ambitious projects I've ever undertaken, with each film taking almost a year to complete. They're the culmination of many technical and creative skills I've spent years developing, incorporating CGI, 2D animation, digital painting, and extensive After Effects compositing. While I've benefited from some talented collaborators, almost everything you see (as opposed to hear) in my films is my own work, from the graphic design to the character animation.” - Richard Noble

Both films can be streamed through the RCA 2020 platform on the Royal College of Art website.

João Gonzalez

João Gonzalez is an animator and musician based in Portugal. Nestor, his thesis from the Royal College of Art in London, vividly constructs the life of a man with several obsessive-compulsive behaviors - living in an unstable houseboat which never stops oscillating.

Nestor (2019) by João Gonzalez

Nestor (2019) by João Gonzalez