Twisted Biscuits

Holidays 2010

2010-09-01T15:18:00.000-07:00

I recently spent some time in Menorca with my family and friends. Too much fun around the pool meant limited time for sketching...but I managed a couple of villa drawings whilst keeping a beady eye on the kids.

Fly Film update

2010-09-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

I was very pleased to come back from holiday and receive the news that the 'Fly' short film had won the Rushes Soho Shorts award for animation this year. The film is still doing the rounds and it's nice to see its simple style and story is amusing many folks.

Here's another production concept and some stills from the film. To see the film, go here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkuszoQV5F8

Holidays 2010

2010-09-01T15:02:00.000-07:00

A quick sketch on the beach at Mother Ivey's Bay, Trevose head, Cornwall. A beautiful day which attracted hoards of people throughout the day.

Not-as-tiny Moleskine doodle

2010-07-08T12:16:00.000-07:00

Still down at Bristol dockside. Still lovely weather...

Concept Design...

2010-07-08T12:11:00.000-07:00

...For a Bolex Brothers production. I spent some time working up concepts for a pixilation-based film.

Not-as-tiny Moleskine doodle

2010-07-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

View over from the SS Great Britain museum, Bristol. I'm getting some mileage from the docks at present.

More Chop Socky Chooks

2010-07-06T13:27:00.000-07:00

Another handful of production keys from the Cartoon Network/ Aardman show 'Chop Socky Chooks'...

Not-as-tiny Moleskine doodle

2010-07-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

Lunchtime dock doodle..

BBC Shortest Night

2010-06-30T15:07:00.000-07:00

Concept design for BBC's Shortest Night title sequence - way back in 2003 I think...this was a huge collection of short films broadcast on the year's...shortest night.

Not-as-tiny Moleskine doodle

2010-06-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

Larger Moleskine sketch down by the docks, Bristol.

Intel Pitch

2010-06-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

Series of character and vehicle designs for an Intel pitch a couple of years ago. This would/ could have been a fab project - no idea what happened, apart from the global economic downturn kicking off around the same time. Still, I like how these guys turned out.

Tiny moleskine doodle

2010-06-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

Walking home from work - Bridge at the bottom of Granby Hill, Bristol. A good spot to watch the dockside renovations going on.

Tiny Moleskine doodle

2010-06-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

A quickie at work...

Gorilla sketches

2010-06-08T13:36:00.000-07:00

I'm itching to get back to Bristol zoo with my son, to try our hands at sketching the various monkeys and apes.

Keraunothnetophobia...

2010-06-08T12:47:00.000-07:00

...is the fear of falling man-made satellites.

Illustration created a long time ago which was part of a series based on obscure phobias. I'm thinking of starting up a new batch...there's an amazing array of bizzare phobias out there.

Burglar character

2010-06-07T16:15:00.000-07:00

During a big sort out, I came across some REAL old bits of work. Included in the piles was this illustration that I think went with a story about false identities/ criminals pretended to be gardeners etc.

It bought back fond memories of rifling through bags of torn up paper trying to find the right tones to make up the face. Tedious technique but worth it:

Some pigs

2010-06-07T16:07:00.000-07:00

Like it says - some pigs:

Thunk A Munkey character

2010-06-07T15:56:00.000-07:00

I found this recently. A rough and ready collaged character which became the inspiration for some E4 work back in 2005. Interesting to see how the design evolved into 3D. The other two images are stills from one of the spots I created. You can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF_z1TrJmpc

Tiny Moleskine Doodles

2010-06-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

A couple more...

Fly

2010-06-07T15:36:00.000-07:00

Aardman have recently released some self-funded short films. They were created to help showcase the house Directors and CGI department. 'Fly' was one of the films, directed by Alan Short. Alan asked me to Art Direct and cast a creative eye over this production. He referenced some of my old E4 work as having the qualities he wanted in this piece.The film is currently heading out to animation festivals all over.

The film can be viewed here, along with some extra info:
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/may/aardman-shorts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkuszoQV5F8

This is an early look of picture concept. More info and stills to follow...

Life studies

2010-06-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

I do not do enough of this...

Lucozade character design

2010-06-07T15:08:00.000-07:00

Created for a pitch last year. Shame this didn't happen - I'm quite fond of the little bat fella.

Tiny Moleskine doodles

2010-06-07T14:55:00.000-07:00

Quick fifteen minute doodles in an A6 Moleskine sketchbook.

Rainy day sketch

2010-06-07T14:50:00.000-07:00

Just when I think there's time available away from the computer - along comes four months of intense computer based malarky. I have been busy but now I'm got a dab of breathing space for the blog.

I wanted to make it out for some doodling today, and of course it started raining as soon as I left the desk. Desk bound, I knocked this up based on a photo...

Droplet Series 2 Toy Custom

2010-02-26T12:58:00.000-08:00

I recently took part in a great project which involved customising a blank vinyl toy to my hearts content. Gavin Strange, Senior designer at Aardman's digital department has been dabbling with vinyl for some years, and has become passionate enough to push his own toy line production. As part of the promotion for his second toy launch he asked a number of artists to take a blank and give it a make over- resulting in a fantastic exhibition of customs from artists including Nick Park and Pete Fowler. He really went to town to get the Droplet name out there and best of luck to him for the future.

Check out some of Gavin's other sites and interests here:

http://news.jam-factory.com

Olympics 2012

2010-02-26T05:33:00.000-08:00

A few doodles created during a pitch to design the mascot for the 2012 London Olympics. One of my favourites that came out of the project was my ping-pong pigeon.

More Chop Socky Lighting Keys

2010-02-26T05:00:00.000-08:00

Cage face

2010-01-19T05:49:00.000-08:00

I have a tendency to make a mess when I'm working traditionally - alot of collage, bits and glue sprawl quicky away from my designated desk zone. I have piles of cuttings and textures that I sometimes throw on the floor in a heap to see if something will come out of it. occasionally I'll see something that resembles a face or character and then I'll stick it together or take a photo. This guy was lurking on one of these mess heaps.

Another PITCH-NO-GO

2010-01-18T16:32:00.000-08:00

Character and Ident designs for a Danish TV channel back in 2008. I think they went down a live action route in the end - ho hum.

Old doodles

2010-01-18T16:04:00.000-08:00

Can't remember when these were done - a few years back. I definitely would like to take these and similar sketches to a colour stage. These were A3 sketches and feel nice and loose.

Some Chop Socky Chooks lighting keys

2010-01-18T15:31:00.000-08:00

Much fun putting these together...and many more to follow. To recap, Chop Socky Chooks is a kids series for Cartoon Network, produced by Aardman & Decode in Canada - it's currently doing the rounds in the UK at some unearthly hour in the morning. but by all accounts the kids are loving it. I was Art Director on the show and spent a good chunk of time providing colour and lighting scripts for different environments. Some keys are worked over basic 3d models whilst some of the earlier artwork was created from scratch. I will try to dig out some really early character development sketches from Danny Capozzi (production designer) which I then worked up for the art direction.

More show info here:
http://www.aardman.com/tv-shorts/our-properties/chop-socky-chooks/

PITCH-NO-GO

2010-01-18T15:05:00.000-08:00

Quite a few images to come in this category - artwork for jobs that didn't quite cut the mustard...it's all good for character building though.

More little fellas to colour up in the not so distant future.

Lazer Grazer doodles

2010-01-18T14:54:00.000-08:00

Found these initial sketches for a piece posted last year (possibly the first one?). I need to get my head around tagging etc....

E4 Christmas Idents

2010-01-18T14:49:00.000-08:00

Back in 2007 I was approached by E4 (UK TV channel) to produce a series of Christmas idents. E4 are great fun to work with - no real tight limitations - just the opportunity to make short, irreverent spots.

Here's some sketches for main characters - an old lady named Granta Clores and her low tech method of crap present distribution. The colour sketch of the old lady was by Adam Cootes, an incredibly talented character designer and animator at Aardman. He helped out as time got tighter and tighter and he set the animation tone for the spots.

To view the animation, hit this link:

http://www.aardman.com/commercials/directors/darren-dubicki/

New York

2009-11-20T06:48:00.000-08:00

Street sketch for a New York scene. I was going to paint this up way back - I'm now adding it to the back of the pile for a dose of colour.

Fingers crossed...

2009-11-11T10:12:00.001-08:00

...as I've recently received the news that the 'Chop Socky Chooks' series has been nominated for a Children's BAFTA award this year - to be announced on the 29th November. The show was created for Cartoon Network and Teletoon, produced by Aardman Animation and Decode.

I was proud to be involved as Art Director for the project, which was HUGE with production teams working hard in Bristol and Toronto. A small crew were creating story and look at Aardman, whilst main production was handled by IDTE and CORE in Toronto. All crews were passionate about the show which made it a pleasure to work on. It was great working closely with Danny Capozzi (Production Designer) who's fabulous 2d design sense translated effortlessly into 3D.

I'll hopefully be posting some artwork from the show in the near future, and give some more details on Danny Capozzi and his work.

http://www.aardman.com/tv-shorts/our-properties/chop-socky-chooks/

Bee lady

2009-11-11T08:45:00.000-08:00

Done some time ago but it gives me a nostalgia hit every time - back in the days when I could really make a mess.

I've realised that alot of the sketchwork that I do amounts to working thumbnails, and probably won't be that interesting to look at- I think a new aim to keep myself blog-busy will be to take existing doodles and colour them up.

Alot of work I'm currently producing can't actually be posted, as it's all linked to commercial and film projects which won't be out there for awhile. I'll keep digging deep and find older work to force me to update this thing.

Book of Conversations

2009-11-09T08:05:00.000-08:00

This was a project created by Mark Carolan and Jason Shragger way back in 2006-ish. The aim was to bring back the art of conversation. They gathered 120 Artists, photographers, Graphic Designers, Creative Directors and Illustrators to each answer a question visually - and then to publish the answers in a big juicy book.

Now after 3 years and all kinds of publishing mayhem, they've managed to complete the project and the book is now hitting the shelves, and I'm looking forward to my copy. Here's the piece that I produced for the book and link to the project. I'll post my thoughts behind the piece at a later stage but hopefully it will make some sense without.

Check out the link below for more details on the project and other artists.

http://www.bookofconversations.com

Right then....

2009-10-12T14:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome etc.

I've been in 'not-a-blog' mode for a long time...but I can now feel my procrastination gene withering.With that in mind:

Here's a first/ test post with an old piece from 2008. It was produced as an award for the British Animation Awards ceremony 2008, and it was won by Animator, Simon Tofield, for his great 'cat man do' short. He's now produced more shorts and they can be found here:

http://www.simonscat.com/

Right, I've done the blog thing, what are the kids down with now?