The Rig courtesy of trago mills.

The makings of a mad man and a experimental animation.

A comic im working on.

Here is a bit of character design I did for my comic of my good friend Carys affectionately known as Seal because she looks like a baby seal when se wake up with out any make up. Heres a little picture of her here on the left, along with her co star Rachel Cope. I am writing a comic about how we met as it was rather sweet. I also thought it would be a great subject to learn and practise writing comics with. As it's pretty much already been written for me i just have to add my slant on it. It also lends its self well to my style of stick men. Making all irrelevant characters stick men so the attention is always clearly on the protagonists. Also the two styles of drawing gel quite well together the UBER simple with the slightly simple. Both sharing the way in which they were inked to tie them together.

Finally!!!!!

ok i dnt kno why this keeps messing up il try fix it!

Face test too much stretch on the eyes?

Yes the eyes strecth abit tooo much. I was trying to get better at stretching but i over did it! Man this is a big learning curve! Im also worried iv over done the tweening on the lip sync!

first face line test

Face keys

Everyone READ THIS POST IN MY BLOG IT WILL BENEFIT YOU ALL!........ How to make video files smaller quickly!

Say hello to the simplest way to make your video files smaller so they can be uploaded quickly!

http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php

Its called handbrake and god is it good! it took 2 mins to upload may last video compared to an hour and 22 mins!

so do it get hand brake!

live long and prosper!

Line test movement

If theres ANY THING I've learnt.....

I will not make an animation this smooth again until someone pays me!!!!!! I am exhausted! I need to get better at stretching out frames! and also doing more pose to pose animation rather than one big flowing animation!....

...despite being drained the animation is looking good I'm happy with the motion but the face is so much harder to do! as i haven't had any experience with it before. I have to say this project is a huge learning curve! AND MAAAN IT TAKES LONG TO GET VIDEOS ON TO BLOGGER!!!

Live long and prosper.

character animation

Here are some little sketches I did of what i want my character to look and act like. A scrorney man who seems to not have the best luck. Maybe smokes abit too much and looks older than his age. Someone who has done a degree but something a bit impractical like philosophy and as a result hasn't got a great job in this economic recession.

stratastencil!

This is amazing!!!!!!!! Ok the content isnt that great but the technique is coooool! and not to hard to achive!

GIFS!!!!

If you love good old gifs like me then check this wonderful site out!

www.sweetgifs.com

I highly suggest watching this video! im not sure if u cud quite class it as animation its more like film and a zoetrope had a baby.

my first proper bit of 2d animation :)

thats he 1st layer at least

live long and prosper

Metronomy!

Isn't this a fine music video, taking the almost forgotten hobby of karaoke and homaging it!

I personally adore karaoke, but not the way we do it in england, oh no! Standing on a stage in a second rate pub singing to a bunch of over the hill drunks, no thanks! But in japan it's completely different. You get all your mates together, you go down the karaoke club, you then pay a little get given a booth and free booze!!!! that's the way it should be done!!!!! I feel this may be what inspired metronomy to make this video as they were in Kyoto at exactly the same time as me playing a gig! i was sooo gutted when i found out the next day! 

Anywho this video is fun! it was obviously fun to make and that comes across! And i think sometimes if u can tell a team had fun on a project your going to like it more. I know thats one thing i was try to achive on my ident project. I think the media centre should invest in some handy cams! maybe just two! for making the makings of! and for doing quick motion test!

live long and prosper

PIKA PIKA!

This is one of my favorite animations think it maybe slightly because of the awsome bass line!

Oh and also that its stunning!!!!! This quite blatently was the inspireation for my ident. I came across it whilst browsing the web in Japan. On Youtube the "things to watch" changes depending on where it's picking your url up from. One reason this animation really inspires me is because it's animation out of the studio! I animation that is not only fun to watch but really fun to make! 

here is a little "making of" if your interested.

A simple style for a simple story: Black and White

A simple style for a simple story. What a lovely idea! How do side walking crabs change direction. What a very french way of thinking! Essentially this short is about "Existentialism". I'm not going to lie i have only just sat and learnt about it. But it's very interesting. The more i read about it! The more i can seem to apply it to french storys in particular. Ok I shall try and explain Existentialism as i understand it... "Existentialism took the human subject, not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual and his or her conditions of existence, as a starting point for philosophical thought." (yup off wiki) Sooo Existentialism deals with our feels and how they are effected by the conditions of our existence.

"man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards." This is a qoute from the famous existential philosopher Sartre, talking about existance proceeding essence... ok too much my brain needs a rest i shall carry on this slightly more intrested blog post at some point this week.......... (but i can talk about aesthetics my brain loves that stuff!)
This short adds to a newish wave of black and white graphic story telling! Such as Persepolis (film and graphic novel), Fears of the dark (film), Maus (graphic novel) and Epileptic (graphic novel) just to name a few. But why has there been this post modern revival of black and white? (i'll leave u guessing awhile my brain really needs a rest if ur really intrested come talk to me about it)

live long and prosper x

This is beautiful! Showing a dream world by animating a bed what a lovely idea. It must have taken so long to shoot the poor model. They really shouldn't of tried to lip sink the singer either it doesn't quite work. It'd be fun to have a crack at something like this.

this is a lovly little animation!

I don'y know if i find this cute and charming or a little creepy? But i do like how it was made. Getting a little kid to draw components then putting them in to something like aftereffects and giving them loads of depth field. fun stuff 

live long and prosper

hair turn arrounds! for winnie

I wish i had done this ages ago! i may of perswaded my group to do it if i had. i wanted to do her hair like this but they all said it would take to long to draw out every time and they were rite it wud take too long to draw out every time! but what if we made say 6 different hair pieces as object in flash. Ahhh then it wudn't take so long and it would look rather impressive! oh well i shall keep this idea for later it may come in handy :)

me an flash do not get on!

Flash is a good programe......for web designers!!!! it really really is very annoying for me being an animator! Trying to make a film in a programme with no zoom fuction is frigging annoying!!!!!!!!!!!

winnies dive cut 1

its good but i wanna make it look less robotic

some winnie designs for colouring

Say Hello To Winnie!

Meet the wonderful Winnie. As soon as i heard her voice i knew she was the one.....the one we would just have to animate! I had this image in my head of her being a chubby friendly faced old lady. So when we started doing character designed i wanted to capture this friendly old bubbly (i.e. chubby) lady the sort i would enjoy a rant on the bus with.

This was my first design. Which i like but it wasn't quite there. i feel it captures her warm heart (cheese!) but seems hard to animate as she seems very flat!


Who ate all the pies!!!! Yes iv made Winnie much bigger. Purely as an experiment. I like it but i think she looks abit like a juggeranaut! But it's helping me think how she can work to me animated. Im realy happy with her hair but i think i'll do a whole post just on the hair!


Here i tried drawing her from the side. Not sure how successful it is?


Im not sure bout the size of her body but im happy with her face and the style of inking! The way something is inked is important, very important it can completely change the style! I really would quite like this to be inked in the very mordern thick line! That alot of english and brazilian illastrators have been opting for over the past few years.

wooooooo!!!

WOW!

A great little bit of PROPAGANDA!

Check it YEH!

Man i really love this!!! :D

Check out this PEZ character!

this explains alot! my kitchen table is always looking battered!

This is just so beautifully done. Well done mr PEZ!

Here are the two backgrounds i did for Kathy. The first one is inspired by a film called Fears of the dark in its style just using black and white. and just showing highlights in dark places. Also inspired by a convocation with my neighbor Corin about the freakiest settings. Abattoirs are pretty rank places!

The secound is me seeing if my style can work for fantasy :) and i think it works quite well i must put some of my old work up for u to see and understand.

love and cake xxx

Live @ 5

This was a day i was dreading!  Really really dreading, but it really wasn't that bad. I got in about 9:30 and straight away Jackson (our producer) gave me the task of making a back ground for an article on the brits music awards. The brief was they wanted a picture of Earls Court. As there was no way they would be able to use a photograph for legal reasons. I had to recreate a picture of it. Soo I took a picture of earls court in to photoshop and started stylizing it, making it all block colour. Then I moved it over to illustrator and lived traced it to make it uber smooth then moved it back to photoshop put some brits banners on it and put some spotlights on it. It looked prettay good for an hour and abits work. But alas i dont think i saved it anywhere, 1 sec...... nope i didn't. oh well appologies.