Grass bust

I needed to create a different section of the grass one that busts up to show the creature burst through. To animate this I decided it would be best if the paper went down and then burst up. To do this I put scrunched up balls of paper behind it and removed them after each take, this gives it the impression that it is moving in and out.




After I had done this I wasn't sure whether to change the colour of the grass from the start of the animation , initially I was going to go blue with it then I opted against this as it began to look more like an ocean rather than grass. I wanted to try and use a bizarre colour palette in the vain of U.P.A animations









Once I had created the grass next was the monster, This was a rough version of what it was going to look like I was very keen that the creatures were H.P love craft inspired much like Gulermo Deltoros work is.









The Frank Darabout Film the mist was heavily inspired by H.P love crafts monsters. I dont want to make them terrifying tho.

Lots to tell. I think twitter has effected my blogging abilities tho. Ive just found out today that my animations are showing at millenium Square in Leeds on the big screen, although Im not sure of the times, so if you see it take a picture :)



Following on from my paper plane CV ive now made a 'shredder' proof CV next I might do an edible one.






Ive submitted a design to Threadless as well you can vote for it here...




Ive never put anything on Threadless before Im quite scared of its huge community, Im not sure if this will go down well at Threadless as its quite concept based. Oh well its worth a try.

(tutors please visit flickr for annotations)






Using the speed graph to slow down the camera before it stops. Gives the the camera moment a more fluid and less clunky feel. I found the information on how t get better motion on the after effects camera via this tutorial at grey scale gorrila. Something so simple is really key for making my work better



Im defiantly going to start doing more tutorials as their is shit loads I need to learn. Especially from C4D, this is something im really going to do in my spare time while im doing whatever the hell it is im doing after uni.






I did think about the possibility of doing the type as vectors. But then I thought it would take away the continuity of the piece. So I made them out of paper, this enabled me to animate them and show the crumples in the paper.




















I wanted to show how fragile the world the main character lives in.So when the characters come on at the start the individual layers construct.


I took allot of inspiration for how the characters would walk from animator James wignall



Upon slowing down the animation I studied the movement that he gets across with so little, everything feels quite weighty. but at the same time alive. The little bobs and movements really enhance the characters.

So basically ive finished the opening and these are some stills of the work in progress, please visit the my flickr for annotations.










This was the original grass I had but I changed it as I felt it was somewhat lacking and un thought.



And this is the improved grass.




Ive also entered a t-shirt design competition I did this in a night I think Metroid, tekkonkinkreet , and Iron man where in my head.


















After turning 24 I think I started to have a mini crisis about my age, and like a good creative I turned this into an idea. I plan to make a time line of events in my life and rate them using a similar system to an RPG with EXP.

You can read the short little stories on my flickr

As for my animation its more cutting and more drawing, "No time for love dr Jones"






Like the previous animation I really try to exploit that 2D camera look and I think im heavily inspired by 2d side scrollers of the early 90's





The single camera movement is defiantly I try to emulate in my work, although the movement if exactly replicated like a video game might make a few people sick
















I also did this image for my noise festival profile picture.. I really like the outcome and Ive got a really good idea for something else now..








Here are some of the trees and a rough look of where im going with the animation (they are falling from the sky in this still.)





I did some little tests of the house getting eating by a monster that pops out of the ground.



Im probably going to do the house again :S

Today I animated the houses, their are three different stages I have to do for them. I also did a little test in after effects.


I also create the outlines in illustrator tomorrow Ill animate those lines individually as I want them to pop up. Originally I hand drew them but I need more buildings and due to time I cant do it for each building.



Over and out.

Ive began composting parts for the openeing of my latest animation here is a little tester teaser.




Tomorrow is all about animating the houses which is deffinatley going to be quite painful.

Lately ive been quite rubbish at updating so here is a mega update of what im up too..

Im curently still busying away with my final major project.

Doing lots of development and style sheets so the process of animating is easier.































I wanted the characters too all look quite similar to the main character. I thught if this world was constructed by him then surely things would look simliar to him. At one point I was toying with the idea of having the characters made out of paper but time was constantly pressing against me and this was a completely un releastic option.









I drew every part of the characters individually with cell paper, this way it was much easier to get an impression of how they would look. Once this was done I vectorized each layer this was something I wasnt really wanting to do as I do like the hand drawn look they have in these images and it would also cut the render time down. But I knew the camera would be quite close up against the characters and this would cause either the file size to be massive or pixilation. Both are unwanted.

Trees and woods

I went to the woods recently to get reference material, I wanted to gather small details that could possibly be incorporated into the animation and new ideas.