Jiggly Wiggly: Eva Münnich's animated short is a timely reminder that you're a cutie pie

Summer is here, which means sun, sea, and for many people, struggles with body positivity. With social media and advertising constantly bombarding us with toned physiques strutting around in swimwear, it's all too easy to let these images get you down. So to counter this, Eva Münnich has created a burst of encouragement.

Titled Jiggly Wiggly, this short psychedelic animation sees a playful character embrace the shape of their body while reminding viewers that they are cute as well. Brought to life with soothing colours, bubble lettering and trippy imagery, it's a reassuring blend that makes you feel more optimistic about yourself.

For Eva, the topic of body positivity is close to her heart. "It's something I struggle with every summer," she tells Creative Boom. "I once again haven't done the diet or training for the 'swimsuit body' and start to feel self-conscious. It's just so unhelpful and unnecessary that social media and ads make us feel this way.

"This is why I made this little clip as a positive message, not only for summer but as a reminder in general that humans are jiggly wiggly cutie pies! And YOU are one of them!"

The literal message in the short reflects this theme. "I knew that the text bits would be balloony and floating and then just followed that direction with the character and the other elements," Eva adds. "The colour palette and movements make it feel light and warm. A bit like it could be the character's inner world when she gives herself positive affirmation."

Created over three weeks, Jiggly Wiggly combines a CG character and 2D animated backgrounds, a new approach for Eva. "There's also some 2D animated overlaying effects like little lights and blinks," she explains. "I'm glad that this worked so well in this case, but I think having the background just colour blobs definitely helped with comping it all together."

An added pressure was the Pictoplasma entry deadline. Eva decided relatively late that she wanted to submit something to the German character design and art festival, and even though Jiggly Wiggly is such a short piece, the scenes took quite some time to render and comp.

"I worked with Phil Brookes, who did the music and sound design, so I had to get my part done a couple of days earlier to give him enough time to work on the music," Eva explains. "We did manage to enter it just in time on the last day! Phew!"

All the hard work paid off, though, as Jiggly Wiggly got selected into the short film program at this year's festival, a recognition that Eva describes as a "big compliment". She concludes: "Being screened along with all the other fantastic work and standing on the stage for the Q&A felt really great! They asked me to do longer work in the future, though. I think 20 seconds is probably really pushing it."