Friday, January 27, 2006

The Journal of Edwin Carp



I've just heard from ex-Disney and "Iron Giant" animator Richard Bazley, who's currently working at Aardman. He's releasing his short film "The Journal of Edwin Carp" on DVD (NTSC format), which features Hugh Laurie in Richard Haydn's quintessentially English story about the misadventures of the pompous Carp who manages to turn a simple chore into a humorous escapade. Remarkably, he produced the short in his spare time while animating at Warner Brothers Feature Animation. I was fortunate enough to see a clip at Richards’s home studio and, needles to say, it looks amazing. Incidentally, the hand drawn look, perfectly capturing the whimsy of Ronald Searle's distinctive style, belies the fact that it is thought to be the first film created in Flash to have a theatrical release. Richard used the Software to save time and it just goes to show how versatile Flash is when used by such a talented artist. DVD's cost £8 and are available through Bazley Films.

Monday, January 23, 2006

FairLy Tales




A few weeks ago I posted some early designs for a poster for Harrogate Theatre's production "FairLy Tales". Well, its now finished and the marketing campaign is underway, so here's the final result together with the original design scamp! You can see the design process the witch went through in my December post. I'm since been cast as the King, a bear... and Prince Handsome! We tour February and details of the production can be found below:
http://www.harrogatetheatre.co.uk/ht05/production.asp?prodID=114

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Mother Mary


Here's a short storyboard for Cliff Richards song for It's a boy. It's not often you get to see a pregnant women in animation. I was interested in the idea of developing the growing bond between Mary and Jesus while he is still in her womb and the opportunity for subtle acting with every day tasks becoming that little bit more complicated. The film has been distributed to every junior school in the country, and features in this BBC article below.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4475358.stm

Shooting Hoops





I've found these early doodles for "Shooting Hoops" doing spring cleaning on my computer. JD had enough on his plate and didn't want to get into modeling a complicated character so I was interested to see just how simple you could take a design. Before all that though I had load of fun thinking of other possibilities, such as an animal playing basketball! I still think it could make a cool short film, and I may perhaps take up the challenge sometime. You can see the final film on the link below. JD is a technical god, currently working at Mill TV and was an indispensable hand on Vernic. I've put his website on my artists web-links section.
http://www.jonathandavies.co.uk/project_hoops.php

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

People


The hustle and bustle of Harrogate.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Hisssssss



A couple more shots of the anaconda model.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Anaconda Snake






I'm finishing animation for Voodoo Magic of this anaconda snake. I'll post more work for this project in the weeks ahead but here's the model in various stages of completion in Softimage XSI. Anaconda snakes don't have fangs and teeth as such. The brief was to exploit the mythical qualities of the snake. With it's full body and rows of teeth, it's a quite a heavy model.

Happy New Year!


I was so taken by this Christmas card from Sam Jacobs that I thought I'd share it with you. I went to Animation College with Sam and later worked for her at Bournemouths Art Institute as a guest animation lecturer. She now has her own company, Stilton Studios and you can see more of her fantastic work on her website, http://www.stiltonstudios.net/sam_jacobs/index.html
I'm going to make it one of my new years resolutions to add more links to artists I've worked with and admire and to evolve a dynamic virtual community, so I'm starting the New Year as I mean to go on! Hope 2006 treats you all well!