Holidays 2010

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

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

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

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

Concept Design...

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

Not-as-tiny Moleskine doodle

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

More Chop Socky Chooks

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

Not-as-tiny Moleskine doodle

Lunchtime dock doodle..

BBC Shortest Night

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

Larger Moleskine sketch down by the docks, Bristol.

Intel Pitch

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

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

A quickie at work...

Gorilla sketches

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

Keraunothnetophobia...

...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

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

Like it says - some pigs:

Thunk A Munkey character

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

A couple more...

Fly

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

I do not do enough of this...

Lucozade character design

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

Tiny Moleskine doodles

Quick fifteen minute doodles in an A6 Moleskine sketchbook.

Rainy day sketch

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

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

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.

  

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