Rockets soar and sparks fly in Andrea Love’s animated tribute to a favorite New Year’s Eve tradition. In case you can’t make it to a live event this year, sit back and celebrate the launch into 2025 with the artist’s mesmerizing pyrotechnic show.

Love (previously) is known for her tender stop-motion portrayals of daily routines in her Cooking with Wool series, along with myriad felted scenarios for clients like Loewe, Michael’s, Hermès, and Netflix. Learn more about her work on her website, and explore all of her videos on YouTube.

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Two spirited lambs bound across a new wooly work by Philadelphia-based artist Holly Guertin. Inspired by a spring visit to a local farm, Guertin felted a pair of sprightly youngsters with striking detail. Pink lines their ears and noses, and their adolescent bodies are covered in tight, wavy fibers, all sculpted through a combination of wet and needle felting techniques.

Titled “The Invitation,” the soft, fleecy work stretches approximately four feet on each side. Guertin shares with Colossal that she’s interested in the relationship between sheep and their wool and whether humans, like sheep, have something similarly tangible to offer.

Find more of the artist’s work on her website and Instagram.

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Wool artist Nastasya Shulyak felts a cast of curious creatures that carry one simple purpose: to bring others joy.

Having recently moved to Georgia, Shulyak (previously) spent the last year acclimating to her new home. As the artist embraced her surroundings, the mountains, minerals, and milieu along the southern coast of the Black Sea began to inform her work. Before long, she created “Pebbles,” the first creature to come into existence since her move.

“I go to the beach for breakfast, and after a couple of minutes, I begin to sort through all the stones that I can reach,” she tells Colossal. “I see a lot of beauty in them and carry some in my pockets.” Daily rituals similar to this helped Shulyak connect to nearby nature and at the same time inspire the birth of more characters.

The artist’s wholesome woolen creatures sit in contentment and kindly look up, their small arms placed politely onto their laps. Fibrous leaves, flower buds, fungi, and stones sprout from their heads as each face bestows a warm, friendly smile.

Though she usually works with laconic forms, Shulyak shares that she plans to spend the coming months creating more complex textures and shapes. Take a look at the artist’s Instagram for new work, a look into her process, and forthcoming shop updates.

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“Set in a dreamy, fluffy world, the wizard Skyrider is facing the ramifications of a giant technological glitch that forced civilization up into the clouds,” says a synopsis of artist Andrea Love’s new video game, Feltopia. Your mission? Fly on a trusty steed named Cumulus “through a world of wizards, robots, and magical creatures—clearing the way towards the rainbow realm, where a mysterious mega-bot is threatening to consume the whole spectrum.”

Known for her meticulously detailed stop-motion animations using wool, Love (previously) embarks on an ambitious collaborative project to transform her felted stories into an interactive game. Love joins seasoned game designer Andy Katsikapes, who invited sound and music designers Peter Michael Davison and Richard Gould to build a world frame-by-frame, combining playable elements with hand-felted compositions and stop-motion techniques.

Learn more about Love’s work on her website, Vimeo, and Instagram.

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Sporting tiny sneakers and plates of eggs on toast, Cat Rabbit’s newest adorable characters (previously) get ready for the day in style. A frog dons loafers and a stylish briefcase, a self-assured bear presents a plate of breakfast, and a bespectacled Bichon Frisé tucks a bag of chips into a tiny tote. The Melbourne-based artist sends her animals out on everyday activities, like rollerskating or commuting to work, imbuing each figure with an expressive face and confident personality.

The artist currently has a solo exhibition titled Working Through It at Nucleus Portland through August 27, and her children’s book How to Make Friends: A Bear’s Guide, published by Berbay Books, was just released in the U.S. You can find a copy on Bookshop, and explore more work on Cat Rabbit’s website and Instagram.

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Los Angeles-based animator and director Siqi Song has a knack for capturing the nuances of relationships and social situations. Her critically acclaimed animated shorts like “SISTER” and “THE COIN” tap into family histories and personal stories from the relatable perspective of stop-motion, felted wool characters.

In a new series of shorts commissioned by It’s Nice That for Mailchimp Presents, Song dives into the world of entrepreneurship in All in a Day’s Work.

Song directed six of the series’ twelve episodes, which run between two to three minutes each and feature a cast of six small business owners who find themselves on an emotional, enterprising rollercoaster. A florist’s new employee struggles with hay fever in “First Hire,” a baker working through the night resists falling asleep in “Unstoppable Rise,” and a finely-tuned Zoom setup comes crashing down during an important call in “Silicon Valley Legends.”

To make the films as internationally relatable as possible, dialogue was removed entirely. “Without language, the characters can only express their emotion in the stories through body language and facial expressions,” Song explains.

For anyone who has launched a product, grappled with time management, or stepped outside their comfort zone to pursue a dream, Song’s animations demonstrate the universal ups and downs of a courageous journey.

You can watch all of the films, including an additional six episodes by creative studio BUCK, on Mailchimp Presents. Find remarkable behind-the-scenes footage on Song’s website, and discover her painstakingly crafted miniature sets, storyboards, and characters.

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Olha and Hanna Dovhan are the creative minds behind the adorable felt sculptures of Manooni (previously). Whimsical and endlessly cheerful, the small family units, pairs of pears, and coupled avocados are needle felted with wool and finished with tiny grins.

Based in Ukraine, the Dovhans have spent the majority of the war in Lviv, although their mother, who is also part of the Manooni team, remains with family members in the now Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia region. The sisters brought some of their materials with them to finish projects that were already underway and have been raising money for Ukrainians in need via Patreon. “Unfortunately, the war is not over, and we can’t leave behind people who are suffering from this terrible invasion,” Olha tells Colossal.

You can support Manooni’s work by shopping available pieces on Instagram.

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From a shy baby fox to toads donning crowns, the felted miniatures crafted by Simon Brown and Katie Corrigan are adorable, whimsical renditions of forest creatures. The Northumbria, U.K.-based creative duo transforms thick rovings of wool into wildlife that can be found perching on a snowy branch or creeping up on a mouse through the grass-like bristles of a wooden brush.

Brown tells Colossal that he plans to incorporate more found objects into the newer sculptures, which are increasingly illustrative in style, and is also working on developing automata to add a liveliness to the realistic characters. See more of the pair’s process on Instagram.

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Illustrator Phoebe Wahl and animator Andrea Love teamed up to gift us with a delightful stop-motion short full of cozy felted sweaters, wooly swirls of steam puffing from teacups, and (too much) snow just in time for the holidays. The whimsical animation is the music video for “Merry Christmas, Happy New Year,” a duet between Ingrid Michaelson and Zooey Deschanel, that tells the sweet story of Bunny, Rabbit, and their needle-felted friends as they prepare for the holidays. Watch the heartfelt film above, and go behind-the-scenes with Wahl and Love, who also collaborated on an adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s Thumbelina, on Hello Hornet.

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Andrea Love (previously) cooks up some treats just in time for the summer heat, although their woolen ingredients might make them less thirst-quenching than usual. From her miniature kitchen, Love films short stop-motion animations that show her squirting spools of juice to make lemonade or coating heaps of ice cream with a thin line of chocolate yarn. The refreshing snacks are the latest in the animator and fiber artist’s archive of felted fare, which you can watch on YouTube and Instagram. (via The Kids Should See This)

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