J is for Jasmine

Here's the princess all the boys seem to like, Jasmine

B is for Belle

Another Princess for the mural. It's nearing completion, probably only a couple of weeks to go.

Some inspiration to share

Here's a collection of Disney animation drawings from the classic golden years of the studio that were assembled for some of us while I was working at the Sydney studio. Fantastic inspiration to just look at constantly. In fact, I have these images with a textured paper backdrop as my wallpaper on my computer at work.

A break ...

Time to revisit an old drawing exercise...

A is also for Aurora

I'm a little surprised how few people actually know the name of the title character from "Sleeping Beauty", then again she does have two names.
I love the character design of this film

A is for Ariel

C is for Cinderella

Here's the next one in the collection, and the only one I actually drew as part of a production. It's a pity my daughter wasn't a couple of years older as she is mad on Cinderella, and it would've been a great kick to be working on her with my Daughter aware of it all.

T is for Tinkerbell

Still here, just very busy, and wishing I could post some work stuff, but that'll have to wait.

I've had a little project that I've been toiling over for a little while now. My daughter is a Disney Princess nut, and I had the brainwave (or maybe it was a snap) that I'd paint a mural for her. Then I had the big decision to make- do I go for an "On-model" look or stylise them. Amy's retro Disney Pin-ups were a great tempter to go for the stylised option, and it would certainly be more forgiving. But in the end, with some input from my daughter, I went for the "on-model" version.

What was I thinking? They're really hard, and especially trying to nail one style in a drawing and then move onto the next one. Thankfully I have a good collection of model sheets from my time at Disney, not that I drew many of them. Well, Cinderella was the only one actually.

Anyway, here's my first...

Revisting an old friend...

A family friend asked me to knock this up for them as they're quite a fan of "The Lion King". It's been quite a while since I've drawn Timon, but gee, it was like putting back on an old glove.

Tram

Is there little worse than riding packed public transport on a hot and sweaty day and then having to contend with a pair of teenage lovers canoodling right in front of you?

Good cause for justifiable homicide me thinks

Barbeque

Ahh, gotta love the smell of a barbeque cooking in summer. I got a new one with a roasting hood for Xmas and finally set it up over the weekend.

Happy New Year

A bit of whimsy to kick the new year off...

"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.