"Lucy" animation

Here's some animation drawings from a short film I worked on late last year/early this year called "Lucy wants to kill herself". No surprises there as to what the story was about huh? Not exactly my "cup-of-tea" so to speak but it was nice to get back to the animation desk after an absence of about 18 months, to flip and roll the drawings. The only thing was, in most of the scenes I had she was either depressed or dying. A friend commented a bit sarcastically, after seeing all my finished scenes "Gee, you must've been fun to live with".

In this scene, she's at the launch of her book doing signings, and after hours of sitting there with no takers, her only customer here handing over a copy of her book is her Mum.

Mel and Kochie

I entered a caricature competition several weeks ago. The winner is announced this Friday. Here is my entry in both inked form and coloured.
The subject matter was pretty open- it just had to be a famous person, living or dead, Australian or international. I ended up settling for popular breakfast show hosts David Koch and Melissa Doyle

Game character stuff

Here's my last word on the "Space Chimps" game. These were some animated gif's I created early on in the piece, even before we had seen any animation from the Studio in Vancouver. These were solely based on some concept art that we had received at the start of the production and based on what I had read of the characters personalities from the script. They were a fun little chance to do a bit of animation before anything was done with a 3D model. Essentially templates for standard gaits of the characters that would appear in the game.

Character- Ham walking

Character - Luna walking


2nd version of Luna walking
Character - Titan walking Ham runningHam- branch walkingHam- Branch runningThis was a bit of set dressing for the Temple level of the game. I model up some alien heiroglyphics to be scattered throughout the level and then a prophecy piece as a bit of an in-joke that foretold the story and the space chimps arrival.

Game environments

Here we go with some more set and prop pieces from "Space Chimps" -the game.

I could discuss a lot of the frustration of working at the company that made this game and the process (more of a lack-of really), but really, what's the point? I'm no longer there, and that's a good thing. It had the potential to be a fun game, despite being a movie tie-in, but due to numerous factors the least of which were a producer who had no idea what he was doing or how to manage people; a game designer whose sole experience was 20 years playing games (that's  right, not making them, just playing them- it's like claiming to be an expert on making movies because you've watched them all your life); and a boss who would chime in once every three months with some random off-the-cuff suggestion that was largely irrelevant, I'm suprised it's getting as reasonable a rating as what it is.

For a game that was originally pitched as a non-fighting platformer, it seriously travelled quite far down the path of becoming a combat game. Combat mechanics for example, when not working were not abandoned, discussions were had in which bigger weapons were suggested. The KISS theory was obviously never heard here.

I once likened the making of this game to rocking up at a film set ready to shoot, you've hired the actors and crew, got all the equipment, but have no script.

Game Art

Here we go with some perhaps long overdue concept art from the game I was working on last year. It's apparently been released now, so officially I can tell all. It's a movie tie-in game with the soon-to-be released animated movie "Space Chimps".
Here's a bunch of character concepts for the Aliens. Some of these were abandoned along the way, others should be in the finished product(I haven't actually seen it myself).

Very Busy

You'll have to excuse the absenteeism over the last couple of months, I've been very busy indeed. Just when I was getting all revved up to do my own little projects, the guy at work who'd been supervising the development of the animated tv series I had started storyboarding on called it quits and yours truly was tapped on the shoulder to take over the reins and direct the show. It's certainly a very welcome and much appreciated promotion, but one that's been keeping me incredibly busy for the past couple of months now. Reviewing scripts, briefing board artists, reviewing boards, creating concept art and character designs, cutting animatics, and the animation hasn't even started yet. Be careful what you wish for, huh?
No time for the caricatures at the moment unfortunately. Every available portion of time is spent working on this series. Unfortunately I can't let anything out. However, the last couple of projects are out of the bag and I'll get onto posting some of that up shortly...

Movie Legend

Or rhymes with Squint...

Gandalf

Onward I forge...

Big Green Monster

Well, here we are at number 50!!
It was about three months ago now that I started on this little exercise of trying to knock out a caricature a day- mainly during my lunch break. It hasn't quite been that productive(some weeks better than others), what with work demands, changing jobs and family life; but it has been a fun little challenge that has pushed me, kept me on my toes so to speak, and I think helped me develop or refine myself a little further as an artist.
I never actually set myself a goal, and while 50 is a good one, I think I'll keep going just with probably not as much vigour; I have a few other things that I would like to focus, as well as steering this blog back to something of an animation focus.
The only problem with that however, is that animation work is generally in production so long that it can be a year or more before a production is released and showing anything beforehand risks breaking a non-disclosure agreement. That was partly why I started these caricatures in the first place. But, I have a couple of personal animation projects that I would like to forge ahead with, and this may be the forum to start showing some of that. Stay tuned (or tooned).
For those who have been regular visitors, thanks for dropping by, and perhaps leave your thoughts, comments or suggestions.

Cheryl

Too easy, despite the radical variations in hairstyle

Sci-Fi Guru

I couldn't do this one and not do a full-body pic. The Emperor might've been more appropriate, but this was still no less fun

The Wolf

Bishop

Mr Handsome

A bit on the tame side, me thinks...

Me as a teenager

I spotted a great meme on Monday at Drawn.
After seeing Amy's crack at it, and Ward's too, I thought I'd offer up my own take.
A bit of a trip down nostalgia lane. Oh dear!