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[Best of 2014] The Year in Animation

2014 was a lively year for animation.
Still from Marilyn Myller, the newest animation from Mikey Please, via

Animated films brought some of the year's most breathtaking stories to life, from the box office to the laptop screen. Giant robot parodies, milkshakes with faces, and birds from a parellel universe captured our imaginations as we munched on stop-motion guru PES' most recent animated meal. Our appetite for appealing animation has been satiated time and time again throughout 2014, and so we present the year's prime cartoon cuts.

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This is the Year in Animation:

+ Breaking Bad fought its way into classic arcade games with [this imagined fight](http:// http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/its-jesse-vs-ryu-in-this-breaking-bad-street-fighter-tribute ) between a magnet-wielding Jesse and Street Fighter icon, Ryu.

+ Argentinian buses morphed into a hilarious, Internet-friendly Transformers parody.

+ We tasted all the colors of the rainbow, as seen in Pixar movies.

+ We took a look behind the animation desks of The Boxtrolls, Mood Indigo, and Disney's Big Hero 6.

A still from Big Hero 6, 2014. Image courtesy of Disney Animation Studios.

+  Léo Verrier taught us to feed our creativity like Jackson Pollock.

+ Mikey Please showed us his struggle with perfectionism in Marilyn Myller.

+ We listened in while George Takei narrated a film about a squirrel's existential crisis.

From Rick Silva's The Silva Field Guide to Birds of a Parallel Future, via

+ Rick Silva imagined what birds would look like in a mind-boggling parallel universe.

+ Bunnies fought robots, [Cyriak fought suburbia](http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/take-a-twisted-stroll-through-50s-suburbia-in-cyriaks-latest-animation ), and Game of Thrones characters fought each other.

+ Human body scans created a mesmerizing virtual reality experience and a surreal [geometric short film](http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/this-animation-distorts-3d-scanned-humans-into-a-work-of-geometric-art ).

+ We rode our way to a volcano in Universal Everything's video for Jeffrey Brodsky's "I'll Be Strong."

Still from "I'll Be Strong." via

+ Marcel the Shell told us about the most surprised he'd ever been.

+ Studio Ghibli teased Hayao Miyazaki's possible heir before announcing that it might close it's doors (but not yet).

+ Then Miyazaki led us in some rousing calisthenics to brighten our moods, then relaxed in front of some 8-bit remixes of his films.

Hayao Miyazaki at work on The Wind Rises (© 2013 dwango). Image via

+ We nerded out over Alexey Zakharov's 3D-animated Futurama, then found out how he made it.

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+ We jammed out to music videos featuring flaming photos, Soviet spaceships , embroidered aliens, empty offices, and claymation creatures.

+ A 3D-printed bear climbed some stairs and went to a dance party, but not before inspiring the journey of an endlessly running mountain lion.

+ In October, an artist used 3D printing to make a film without any film.

+ We couldn't believe our eyes at the work of rising stop-motion star, Tobias Stretch.

Still from Tobias Stretch's music video for Christopher Bono's "Unity." via

+ We cut our teeth on stop-motion animated wood grainswooden furniture, and wooden paintings.

+ Unpeeling a laptop didn't seem possible before this animated experiment.

Augmented reality doodles told us the unseen stories of everyday life.

Marty Cooper, via

+ We watched LEGOs bust ghosts and LEGO-like Construx blast off into space.

+ And finally, we went behind the scenes of stop-motion master PES' new short film, after taking advice from his Reddit AMA, and helping him launch a Kickstarter.

This is the part six of our end-of-the-year series. Be sure to check out the year in brains and sound. Stay tuned as we continue to look back on 2014 and collect all of our favorite examples of modern creativity, fantastic innovations, and important trends.

Related:

[Best of 2014] The Year in Art Discoveries

Best of 2014] The Year in Sound

[Best of 2014] The Year in Brains

[Best of 2014] The Year in Sculpture

[Best of 2014] The Year in Robots