Incredible Motorized Flipbook Machines Made With Wild Bird Drawings

When I was a kid, I remember how much I loved flipbooks. A flipbook is a book of pictures that you flip through, and it looks like an animation. You’ve probably seen them many times. Over the years, flipbooks have gotten fancy. There is even software you can use to create a digital flipbook for yourself. Today I’d like to share one of the best flipbooks I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a motorized flipbook machine made with bird drawings. It brings the birds to life.

Artist Juan Fontanive hand-draws each one of these bird drawings. Some are drawn with colored pencils, and some he paints with watercolor. Just that alone would take more patience than I could muster. Then he takes it all one-step further and installs each flipbook into a motorized box that can flip through them fast. The result is an animation that simulates motion.

It almost looks like the bird drawings are trying to fly out of the boxes. The sound of the pages flipping even mimics what a bird might sound like when it flaps its wings. Juan creates these boxes from old parts he finds in discarded clocks and bicycles. Each machine is unique in its own way.

I’ve always wanted to create a flipbook, and these motorized flipbook machines are really inspiring. Of course, mine wouldn’t be motorized or this colorful, but I still think it would be fun to play around with. Even just creating something simple like Superman flying off into the clouds would work well. If you have any experience making a flipbook, let us know in the comments below. These examples I’ve shared today are the most elaborate one I’ve ever seen. Of course, they don’t have to be this fancy to be special.