About
My passion for animation began in childhood, sparked by the wonder of seeing stories come alive through movement and design. Shows like Samurai Jack opened my eyes to the power of visual storytelling, and that early inspiration has stayed with me ever since.
I studied Illustration and Animation at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, United Kingdom, where I developed both a strong foundation in traditional techniques and a deep appreciation for the creative possibilities of the medium. Today, my work spans 2D animation and motion graphics, with a focus on creating visually compelling, narrative-driven content.
Aesthetics play a central role in my process. I enjoy crafting distinct visual languages for each project, often working with limited colour palettes to create atmosphere. I also enjoy pushing boundaries through experimentation. Whether I’m working digitally or with tactile materials, I’m always looking for new ways to express an idea. Oil pastels, in particular, are a personal favourite, an underused medium that I love exploring for its texture and the fact I can draw with it at any angle and create a range of different marks with one pastel.
Music is a constant source of inspiration for me. It often acts as the spark for new concepts. As soon as I hit play, imagery starts flashing in mind, guiding the rhythm and tone of my visual work.
I’m excited by collaboration, exploration, and the chance to tell meaningful stories through animation. Let’s bring ideas to life.
Contact
Klaudijus Mankus
Animation and Motion Graphics.
Contact: klaudijusmankus@gmail.com
S h o w r e e l B r e a k d o w n
I animated this illustration of mine for the purpose of being a decorative background element. It was inspired by the title sequences in a tv show ‘Samurai Champloo' that had a combination of text and moving image in the back and how they interacted.
Made the illustration in Photoshop and animated it in After Effects.
The key design idea here was to divide the tiger into two pieces and have them move in on each other.
The Showreel was edited in After Effects and the transitions were created by me.
This walk cycle was made while I was studying animation at university.
The assigned walk cycle exercise were all hand drawn sketch ones so I wanted to create one that’s more polished and coloured.
I love medieval period and fantasy so designed my own knight character for this animation.
Made the illustration in Photoshop and animated it in After Effects.
In this scene I was experimenting in working on an isometric city animation like many Ive seen made commercially.
The buildings and van assets I got by buying them online.
Incorporated a 3D object in the animation by using this free map pin I downloaded.
Animated in After Effects.
With this shot I was experiment creating an animated video title from a single static image. I always loved the blossom painting by Van Gogh for how decorative it is so I wanted to bring it to life with some movement.
I first separated all the different objects in the painting with Photoshop. Then brought everything back into After Effects to animate. Used a bunch of compositions and increased brightness. I love the composition of this shot.
This animation was an assignment in university. To demonstrate the 12 principles of animation.
I’ve drawn and designed all the characters and plants in Photoshop and then animated in After Effects.
This is an animated loop I made to try out a collage like look using a photo of a tiger. I thought this could be a dynamic clip to explore the viewer being swallowed and could fit well within certain scenes and music videos. Giving very energetic shot.
Created with After Effects.
This was an experimental oil pastel animation. I would like to do more exploring with this technique. I love oil pastels and feel like they are my favourite medium but seem to be very underrated by many people as a professional tool.
There’s really not a lot I could find in terms of oil pastel animation out there and I think this was a very successful test.
I hand drawn all the plants with oil pastel then scanned and edited the file in Photoshop before composting them in After Effects.
This is a mug design I made as part of Medieval Jack, a personal project where I create medieval themed merch and art.
In this shot I thought I would show of some of my design skills.
Oil pastel sketch, Photoshop and After Effects.
Been seeing a lot of powered up character designs as album art on Spotify across a whole lot of Phonk music genre. So wanted to create a animated version myself.
To save time on the illustration I got the Photoshop AI generator to create the image that I then cleaned up a bit.
Then animated in After Effects. This was very fun I got to create lightning for the first time and explored particle animation.
I keep seeing a lot of ads and videos on TV and social media where I go ‘That’s motion graphics‘ and I think to myself I could do something like that.
One of the ads I kept seeing was from Ocado where veg and fruit with bobble eyes have interactions. So I wanted to create my ow little version of a fruit interaction myself to prove that I could do it.
Some choices I made I think work better than the original like the colour of lips matching the fruit I think looks better. However due to time constraints I’ve not done any lip syncing to an audio and that’s something I would love to try next time.
Generated the fruit in Photoshop and added the rest and animated in After Effects.
The goal of this animated loop was to explore a whole bunch of things I could do in After Effects using simple shapes. I first started by developing a bunch of colour schemes and choosing one of them for a cohesive aesthetic.
I wanted to explore keyframing, rotating/spinning, moving objects, morphing, interaction between different objects, increasing size, changing brightness, looping, adding noise textures, colour change, reveals, radio wave effect and animating line paths.