Tribal electro animation Birdmask

Illustrator and animator Neal Coghlan started work on Birdmask visuals at the end of 2010. They started out as various individual illustrations, and grew from there. "The elements came together quite nicely and I started to form compositions out of them which became geometric, tribal bird faces," he says. "Like with most of my illustrations, I couldn't resist bringing it alive by animating it."

In its current form, the set is made up of six different faces, each one with eight layers and four different clips per layer - making a total of 192 clips. These are all loaded into Resolume and triggered using Ableton and an iPad - it wasn't composited using FCP, Premiere or After Effects CS6 - it was all done live.

Party time

Birdmask visuals have been showcased at the Mapping Festival in Geneva, clubs across London, and during Channel 4's House Party last month where Coghlan performed alongside London R'n'B legends Soul II Soul.

Coghlan is company director of Aszyk - a small design studio he is using to push the illustrative side of his work, whether it's part of a website, interface design, or animation for a brand. But he isn't finished with Birdmask… "The set is still evolving and work has begun on a 3D version," he adds. "I'm hoping to port them into Unity 3D where I can make them even more reactive…"

Watch this! How the audio is linked with the visuals:

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