Click on the intriguing preview gif, and be instantly thrown out of this world. A giant emoticon riding on boiling lava, and a volcano with facial features and that somehow undulates vertically! Nothing about this picture makes sense!

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And yet, the stunning pixeling on all three subjects, simple yet effective lava animation, gentle bobbing of both characters, and lovable expressions combine together to create a piece too wonderful to ignore.

One thing I did notice that seemed a tad off was the lack of perspective change when it came to the mouth moving up and down. But that would have called for an intense amount of creativity and detail that I don't think any emoticonist or pixel artist on dA would care to plunge into.

Just as I was hitting the Send button, I realized that the lava colors change! Excellent touch, it creates a nice illusion of constant flow, rather than animation loop. The one thing I might see would be more frames for the drops of lava falling down to the volcano, but it's already amazing.

Last thing: a stray missing pixel in the bottom center of the volcano.

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I have to say, Leo: you're setting the bar high on this one. Keep it up like this and you'll be replying to messages for weeks at a time.

_{Kids: don't try this at home or the next time you're on vacation in Hawaii.}