Early stages of new project

These are some sneak previews of what cartoon short I am working on next. It sort of has shades of the old Road Runner cartoons, which can't be a bad thing; Tex Avery and Chuck Jones are among my inspirations after all! The main characters are all non-anthro this time, which I think is going to be a lot of fun to work with and perhaps a breath of fresh air. It is still cartoon animals granted, but I feel that I need to keep focusing on my strengths in order to produce a half-decent showreel.

'The Heron' is to serve as the antagonist (of a sort) of this new story.

One of two german shepherd dogs acting as a generic supporting character.

One thing I am proud of are my backgroud drawings. The new story is set in the English countryside; I have the North and the Midlands in mind since some of my heritage originates there. Plus some of the area looks lovely :)

I'm going to do more research into overhead electric wires for British railway tracks. The final image will have different pylons in place of the existing ones.

Map Of Australia

The fourth in my series of cartoon maps - as you can tell I am a bit of a buff when it comes to geography =P It was the subject I was best at in High School.

Song Of Your Desire

Here it is; an animated music video of a recent single by Ash called 'Song Of Your Desire'! The band themselves gave me their blessing to make it, and I hope this video does what I set out to do! It is a 100% unofficial video and no profit has been make from it.

The animation in this video is simple and straightforward, but at the same time I wanted to add some emotion to the whole scene. In a way it is a nice change to draw more simplified characters and also something that ISN'T comical for a change!


You can watch the video here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zCE4osAFrU

Ship sketch

Whilst doing some random sketches I ended up doing a quickie of the Italian liner SS Andrea Doria - among the most pleasing ships to look at ever built - so here she is!

Rural backgrounds

Currently in the midst of making an animated fan-made music video of a band I like. I won't give much away except the animation is very simple and I'm sort of trying to see how minimalist I can make something whilst it can still be somewhat compelling to watch. I aim to get it finished before Christmas ^^. Here's a couple of the backgrounds to give you a taste of what the settings are going to look like...

Snow

There is up to two feet of the white stuff in places round where I live just now. It is pretty to look at, but when it brings Britain to it's knees then that is no fun indeed. Still, I think there is some beauty in it too ;)

New York Background

I've been working on a street scene picture for the last fortnight. I'm still finalising the activities and the characters in the foreground, but the background alone still looks up to it alone - it is basically supposed to be a generic street in Manhatten Island, NY, set during the autumn of 1998. But I did this one in black and white for the effect!

Robot Wars Prototype

In a nostalgic mood I decided to get out my lego and build a couple of battle robots - like the ones on Robot Wars, one of my favourite shows when I was younger. My uncle in North Carolina and my cousins there were and still are mad about robot combat - they have their own workshop and still compete in live events. Lucky them =P

Me? I didn't have that luxury (plus it was dangerous) but I always enjoyed the various designs that came about and do remember building lego (and later cardboard) variations of them in various sizes during that time; most of the time I did it alone by myself but in Primary 7 (a LONG time ago) I did sometimes spar with some other boys in my class, unfortunately the ones I competed against the most spent more time cheating than fighting fair - boo!

That said, it sort of made me evolve my designs into something that did beat them, convincingly - and the result was a lot of sour grapes from the opposition! This build below is a replica of my then most effective design - 'Scavenger' - and it's weapons were two lifting spikes that made a mockery of the oppositions' high ground clearance. It did not lose a single 'battle'.

Today, eleven years on if I were to compete in the real events today, what sort of robot would I have built? My uncle previously favoured full body spinners but I always found them a bit samey. On the other hand, below is a prototype is probably what I would go for; I call it 'Undercutter'. It is basically built to my favourite specs - low, flat, sturdy and with plenty of power behind it (it is six wheel drive!).

 

Undercutter is armed with a lifting arm that can ram and flip over it's opponents. The only drawback I think with this design is that it can't self right if it gets tipped over, so maybe if I want to seriously get into real lightweight Robot Combat events (not very likely!) then I would probably have to make some modifications - if the weight limit would allow it!

 Call me sad if you will, but James May plays with Lego occasionally so what the hell =P

The 4real Wall Mural

In late 2006 I helped lead a group of first and second year high school pupils in painting a brand new mural on the back wall inside our local youth centre in Monifieth. Next month, the youth centre is moving to a new building ajacent to the High School, and the old building (with the mural) is eventually going to be demolished. So last night I went there to have one last gaze at my handiwork - and it is still as warmly received as it was four years ago :) It'll be sad to see it go. Here's a comparison, as you can tell it hasn't really changed!

 Here is my newly painted contribution in November 2006.

And here I am with it yesterday. Still looks alright, considering how old it is!

Willow & Timothy II - 'New Horizon'

Finally, after several months of work David Whamond and I are ready to present the new incarnation of my Willow and Timothy comic series, which is somewhat different from the webcomic that was made from August 2009 to May 2010. The nine pages of this first instalment of the new series are now up for display here; hopefully a more suitable host can be found soon. In the meantime, enjoy them - just click on the image to full size it ;) Depending on the feedback, we'll see how long it will take to get Chapter 2 of the series made.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let us get this started...

To get this blog started, here are three different types of pictures I have been making quite recently;

This is a watercolour that I think looks none too dissimilar from the images you find in storybooks - I especially like what has come from it so far since it looks softer than the digital pictures do. I feel up for doing more pictures like these soon, perhaps for one of my next planned animated shorts.

 The background here in this piece of my 'Willow and Timothy' characters was manipulated from photographs I took in downtown Toronto. I enjoyed the effects so much I chose this image for my first batch of business cards. Currently the first story in a series of new comic strips of these characters is almost set to go online!

The 2010 model sheet of my character, Keen Fox. My goal was to mix function with comical expressions to keep it simple, straightforward whilst still interesting.

A series of charicatures that I made from cutting up parts of one of my mum's old fashion magazines. Not my usual sort of thing, but I found the results a breath of fresh air from my usual artwork.

I will keep updating this blog with my progress on whatever relevant projects I might be undertaking.