BALLHOG

Had a quick go at Sega's Draw a badnik challenge. Why not? Check out my article about this whole kafuffle over at my other blog Sega Memories.

New blog layout?

Don't mind me, I'm experimenting with a re-design of this blog. It's currently a W.I.P, though if people end up hating it I can come up with something else/change it back to the old design. Is it too cluttered?

ChewTV On the Spotlight Article

Those lovely chaps at ChewTV has just posted a short but sweet article on me over at their website, go give it a peek!

Lucy Lolly is also up on the website, which has already has a lot of views and a nice review from a Mediawhizz09:

"I thought this is a very inspirational film. The makers clearly know what they were basing it on and how they were going to do it. I like this film because it is basic yet at the same time complex. The story line is clear and the animation is wonderfully made."

Thanks again guys!

Lucy Lolly Contest on DeviantArt! Prizes!

So after much, much delay I will be releasing a DVD of Lucy Lolly this March in time for the UK Web + Comix Thing. The DVD will include:

* The film itself with scene select.
* The animatic Storyboard
* Pencil tests
* Concept art and background art slideshows
* Four extra films: Rabrab, the Fuji's, The Audio Show and Mousetrapp
* Also looking to include some commentaries, either as subtitles you can read under the film or voiced, I haven't decided yet.

I'm also planning to make a 'The Art of Lucy Lolly' book that will come with the DVD, that will have early doodles, concept art and the storyboards.

Another extra I would like to include is a fan art slideshow, so I've set up a contest over at DeviantArt. Head on over to this journal post to read the rules and see what you could win if you enter. Everyone that enters will get their art featured on the DVD.

P.S: If anyone wants to enter that is not a DeviantArt member, please host the art on a website like Photobucket or Tinypic and send me the link and I'll include it with the rest (entries will be linked to in the DeviantArt Journal).

Kangaroos with Flame-Throwers

This was inspired by part of this game review I did for the Dreamcast Junkyard last year.

I've also had an idea that I might go through if people like this and would wanna see more like it: a book/comic called 'Kangaroos with Flame-Throwers and other animals packing heat." that I could get printed and sell at UK Web + Comix Thing. It'd be about 10-20 illustrations like this one with no story or anything, just for the pure fun of it.

With this in mind I want this to be as good as i can get it, so critique of the layout, design, colours, how I did the fire etc would be appreciated. This would be the front cover of the book after all.

Art Clokey 1921-2010: Photos from Exhibit in 2005

Darn, looks like we've lost another veteran animator, though he had a good innings at 89 and went peacefully according to sources. The guy is one of the biggest names in clay animation, with his first experimental film Gumbaisa winning him a pilot and eventually a long running series of the surreal adventures of this chap to the right of you.

Now being a Brit I wasn't really exposed to his work as a kid like most have been America over the last 50 years: I only actually learned of and saw episodes of Gumby (a character much like our Morph, only Gumby has been around far, far longer.) on a trip to the Moving Image gallery in Queens, New York a few years back. They had an exhibit running of Gumby full of sets and character models as well as screening of some of the films and lots of old merchandise to see. I did write a bit about it right here on this very blog, but only showed you one photo from there. So it only seems fitting to show you the rest of the photos I took. Big times fans of the series who couldn't go to the exhibit might appreciate them at least. Some are a bit shakey though, sorry about that (click to enlarge).

From what little knowledge I have of the Gumby series, I believe all of the sets and models at this exhibit were from the Gumby movie that came out in 1995 (and can be found on Youtube).

On the exhibit they also had a quick demonstration with a guy showing how stop motion animation is done (naturally aimed at kids). The Gumby models they made and used were not quite as slick as the ones above, haha.



And look at all this merchandise! I'm still surprised this never made it over here, unless I'm mistaken and they did show it here once.

and this place even had the costume Eddie Murphy wore for his Gumby parody on Saturday Night Live!

GO SEE THIS MOVIE.

IT'S GONNA BE AWESOME.

Can't wait to hear Kirstie Alley as the voice of the hot pink car!

Most in depth review of one of my animations yet?

Holy crap, check out this review for 'Cheese Must go Down' by Clive (who's 'love your fridge' film is very cool btw) on ChewTV. How did I miss this? Remember this was a quick experiment I made in a week just before I started my animation degree to get used to movie clip symbols.

"A combination of an animation and music video, this video depicts the creator’s thoughts on the cheese culture which is that it needs to be stopped. The singing quartet Abba is referred to in this piece, as an example of cheesy music. Using three main characters carrying banners in a rally of protest this video although harmless and fun in its approach brings across a strong opinion.

Visually the animation is captivating, and the slow build up of the music with the appearance of the characters is timed perfectly. A combination of pale colours brings a calm atmosphere, while the rock music in adds depth to these characters giving them a purpose. The background uses an outline of the three main characters this creates the impression that the animation is expanding. This could be used to represent the growing distaste to the cheese culture.

The message of the video remained in tact, which was shown in the repetition in the song ‘Cheese must go down’. The only time it wasn’t is when a red character appeared whenever a computerized sound came up sounding similar to the auto- tune which artists such as T- Pain use. All the characters in the film work, although the red character is questionable.

I like the fact that the video ends the same way it started with the characters far away and then slowly coming into vision and then at the end moving back out of vision while the music fades out. Close up shots allows us to see the messages on the banners and is also used in the climax of the song. The tilt shot provide a new viewpoint and keeps the video interesting.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this video; I believe that the visual and audio work very well together and that the person who created this piece is somewhat a genius. The only downfall to the video was the purpose of one of the characters as they weren’t needed and I believe there were other options apart from this character that could have been used to break up the repetitious song."

Haha, wow. Reminds me to get Lucy Lolly up there, I'd love to see that analyzed in this crazy depth.

500 watchers on DeviantArt

Ok, so when i posted this on DeviantArt itself I technically only had 499 watchers, but it's officialy 500 now. Unless someone un-watches me, or you don't count people who have moved to a new account and watched me again etc etc etc.

Anyway! Posting this here so it's er...here. Been a while since I've done a big group pic like this, andas you can see I still can't be arsed to fully colour them when I do do them. This one is full of friends and inspirational people from the website over the years, as many as I could squeeze in anyway. You can find links to everyone's DevArt page featured on the image here.

Fan Arts by Zody!

Check out these excellent fan arts of some of my characters by a DeviantArt friend of mine, Zody. You might remember he also drew me a superb Lucy Lolly piece this time last year. Looks like I owe him three times over at this point!

The Fuji's! Remember these old plasticine guys?

..and the Howdooyoodoo (or at least his American relative Howdy Doo)!

Thanks again Zody! :)

Planning for Web + Comix Thing

So the UK Web + Comic thing 2010 [link] is at the end of march, so I need to my arse into gear making stuff to sell for my table. So far I'm planning:

8 X 10 prints. I've made some based some previous images so far, and I'm gonna be making some new art for them too. Trying to stick to non-fanart stuff so anything from my gallery (or even screens from any of my animations) you think people would be interested in?

I'm also planning to make that Lucy lolly DVD I promised such a while back with some other films on it too. One problem I've come across is I seem to have lost the PSD files of the DVD cover I designed, darn it.

I was also maybe considering putting a small Manga-Gaga book out with some choice issues and art, though this is probably on the bottom of my priority list unless people would really like to see one.

And one last daft idea was to make Pogs. Yes, pogs. I still have a milkcap maker thingy, put some of my art of them, why not? It'd be different! Badges would be good, too.

Any other ideas?

Twenty Ten. Ooh.

Hope you all had a good Christmas and new year's eve. I haven't posted at all here for a bit because I've been a bit ill for the last week: had some sort of cold that made all the veins in my face hurt, pretty painful up until sometime yesterday when the anti-biotics kicked in but I'm starting to feel a lot better now. Wasn't really up for going out last night, just laid in bed playing Wii games and watching This is Spinal tap on the telly. Ho hum!

So, 2009. The ups:

- Two major freelance jobs Lost in the K-Hole and Cool 2 Chil, which both had their own launch screening nights.

- 2nd year going to UK Web + Comix Thing, which convinced me to get a table myself for 2010

- Summer of Sonic: Really fun, met a lot of people I've known online for yonks and made new friends too.

- Rabrab screened at Glastonbury. I didn't see it happen but thanks ChewTV!

- Being invited to join my collage's animation course group at the New Designers show. Lots of people got to see Lucy lolly and every single one of the Showreel DVDs I produced were taken away Also bumped into another net friend there. made up for never having a final year show with my group in 2008.

- Finally got started on Tea N Crumpets ver.2, with a part of it online with updated CV, Showreel, Portfolio etc.

- Setting up the Dreamcast Top 100 vote for it's tenth anniversary that got a lot of attention and praise from the Dreamcast community. Also having the Dreamcast Junkyard and Sega Memories mentioned in Retro gamer and Gamestm magazines.

- Getting two beautiful kittens: Rocky and Tibbles. The house felt so empty without pets after Tigger passed away in 2008 and these two just lighted up our life's so much.

- MCM London Expo: Met more friends on the interwebs and had a good time.

- Having fun and getting some motivation back by Livestreaming.

and the downs:

- Tibbles losing his life at just a few months old. We bought the two kittens so they could be company for each other and they really loved each other. Such a tragic loss of young life.

- Icons of my childhood and inspiration passing away. This more or less happens every year but 2009 seemed to be particularly cruel, as many weren't even that old yet.

- After the Freelance jobs there was about half a year or promised jobs that went no where and nothing else. Very uneventful job wise from that point.

- General lack of motivation and long spurts of artist block.

- That illness I got the last couple weeks, gave me some sleepless nights but at least it hasn't lasted too long.

- Other things I'd rather not discuss here.

So quite an eventful year now I look back at it, despite big lumps in time of pretty much nothing happening.

So for 2010:

- Need to get ready for the UK & Web Comic Thing, seeing as I booked a table! Should really start this asap as it's at the end of March!

- Go to Summer of Sonic and MCM London Expo again, this time making a better effort to plan ahead for them so I had find more of me friends and maybe even cosplay. Either way i'm not missing out on these.

- A JOB. Or at least more paid Freelance jobs. I repeat a JOOOOOOB. I have some training courses in London planned for janurary so that might help, and a possible freelance job though that's not paid.

- Draw more, animate more, do something with my spare time! Finish Tea N Crumpets Ver.2, mainly.

- Dentist, need to get these teeth sorted out. Got an appointment booked for a couple weeks time.

- Get some exercise in to lose a bit of weight.

- Flog off stuff like video games that I know I'm never gonna get around to playing. Try not to buy too much unnecessary stuff.

I could write a summary of the decade but I'd be here all day long, and at least art wise I've already done that earlier.