another update

The facebook page has been taking the priority unfortunately. I need to keep more up to date with my posts here.

Had AMC comic-con back in October, done a few smaller markets, caricatured at a wedding, exhibited in a Star Wars themed exhibition, also made my pin-up calendar for the third year running, plus been busy with freelance work and commissions.

Calendars are available at - http://drawrichard.bigcartel.com/product/2016-retro-pin-up-calendar

Here's an update of some of what I've been up to-

Merry Christmas 2014

Keeping up the Christmas Tradition...
another Christmas pin-up

...and all the best for the New Year

Merry Christmas

Keeping up the tradition, Christmas Cheesecake #4

 

Merry Christmas all and all the best for the New Year

Christmas Cheesecake

Keeping the tradition that I started two years ago, here's this year's Christmas themed pin-up

... and a more "adult" version



A couple of Santa scenes

I finally got around to seeing "Santa's Apprentice" just before Christmas with my eldest daughter and we both enjoyed it. She was very delighted in seeing my name at the end and remembered several of the scenes that I had animated. It was a fun little film that we and everyone else in the cinema enjoyed.

Anyway I thought I'd share a little bit more of my time on the production. As I have previously mentioned, we animated this using Toon Boom software drawing digitally on tablet monitors thereby eliminating paper and the need to dash off every few hours and shoot a linetest. Here's a screen capture showing what the interface looked like and our digital lightbox.

This made it very easy working remotely as I was. I was able to easily export a movie clip of my scene and upload it for the Character lead and Director to view and critique.

And here's the linetests of a couple of my favourite scenes. This first one is my favourite.

And this one is my daughter's favourite scene

Santa's Apprentice experience

The French-Irish-Australian Animated Christmas movie “Santa’s Apprentice” that I worked on has finally been released.

For me, to work on this film as an Animator was an opportunity to reunite with some of my ex-Disney colleagues and to extend the Christmas spirit for about six months.

The film achieves a hand-drawn animation look with digital software Toon Boom Harmony so that we were creating paperless animation. This was a new experience for the twenty or so of us Animators who were used to animating pencil on paper now drawing directly onto a tablet monitor. I’d used the software previously at ettamogah but not in the same way. It was a great experience and chance to update the skills- no longer did we have to collect all of our drawings and head over to the linetest machine, we could do it instantly at our desks. Repositioning or adjusting drawings was an ease with instant feedback. The transition from traditional to digital was a relatively smooth one with useful tools available to us in the software.

Whilst most of my colleagues were Sydney-based, and I did spend some time in the studio there to acquaint myself with the project, I was able to work from home with a VPN connection and Skype to communicate regularly. Ahh, the wonders of the internet.

The work-from-home experience was a new one for me, well as a fulltime gig anyway- adjusting to the freedom of working my own hours, not having to commute or be in a studio and dealing with the distractions that come from working at home; and all the while still having to meet a quota. Once I set myself a routine, everything fell into place. It was a fun experience to share with my daughter and see her taking an interest in what I was doing. She would come up into my attic in the morning before school and ask and look over what I was working on. She would come up again at the end of the day and see finished scenes and get a great kick out of seeing these drawings I was making come to life before her eyes. That made it such a special experience. Oh, and she never considered it work for me.

Check out more on the film at the official "Santa's Apprentice" website.

Following are a collection of coloured stills and linetest frame grabs from scenes in the film that I animated.

More Holiday Snaps

Here's a few more snaps from the holidays, this time over in Perth. Unfortunately it was so hot most of the time that we were over there that most trips out were to pools or somewhere with water.
Here we were on our way home from a day out in Fremantle and had just had a cruise back up the Swan River to the city. This rather cool statue caught Madi's attention in the Hay Street Mall.
A happy little boy giving us a smile.
Madi and two of her cousins enjoying an icecream.
...and discovering her cousins scooter

Christmas Spirit

The madness of Christmas has now been and gone and we're only just recovering. Back from our holiday, trying to get ourselves organised and back to work tomorrow (groan...).
The Christmas house lights display. If only I didn't have to put them up and down again each year.
Twas the night before Christmas. Christmas Eve and it looks like Santa's been.
Madi and Cameron Christmas morning sharing some sibling love.
And the present unwrapping begins...
and keeps going...