Nickamation

Showreel Including "Wonders of the Solar System" and "How Earth Made Us"

2011-02-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

Here's a new reel containing some shots I previsualised and animated on "Wonders of the Solar System" and "How Earth Made Us" at Prime Focus World for the BBC.

Wonders of the Solar System

2011-02-06T04:54:00.000-08:00

Here's a few clips of VFX shots I did the camera and asset animation on for Wonders of the Solar System at Prime Focus London for the BBC.

The shots only look so good though thanks to a great VFX team including Simon Clarke, Melody Woodford, Stephen Waugh, Jon Keene, Andre Hitsoy, John Hasted, Christopher Anthony, Prodeep Ghosh, Goolzar Buchia, Karan Juara, Seema Schere, Sajeel Shukla, Nick Hanks, Peter Forsythe, Keith Devlin, Bruno Fernandes, Graham Stott, Safiya Ravat, Mark Corpus, Jeevan Singaram, Ryan Locke & Milan Schere (breathes out).

In case you're wondering the music is from Daft Punk's "Tron Legacy" soundtrack, well worth checking out (I bought the CD straight after watching - commercial sucker)!

Note:- Well 5 minutes after upload they took down the audio, it's that good - seriously!

Shorter Reel

2010-10-09T05:03:00.000-07:00

On the advice from workmates I've chopped my reel down.

I was hoping to get some of the shots I worked on last/early this year for "Wonders of the Solar System" and "How Earth Made Us" on the BBC but haven't had a reply from Prime Focus World yet!

Busy times at Aardman

2010-07-05T12:57:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know (ie my non facebook buddies) I've been at Aardman Animation now for over 4 months working on their next stop motion picture, so sorry for the delay (and thanks to old Uni mates for kicking my ass into saying what I've been up to in the last year or so) in updating, but I've been pretty busy working.

All I can say is it's been awesome so far, working with some seriously cool people who really know what they're doing in the film making process, enough so that Matt Groening and Miyazaki send there own personal drawings to them to say how much they love their films too! And I get to hang out with Wallace and Gromit in the flesh / plasticine sometimes.

Since then the two BBC series I worked on at Prime Focus "How Earth Made Us" and "Wonders of the Solar System" have both been aired, and gained record viewing figures. Here's the trailer for Brian Cox's "Wonders of the Solar System"(he's a bit of a secret hero of mine, watch the extras on "Sunshine" - he gives a great commentary on how he worked with Danny Boyle on making a fictional film as real as possible):-

Nominated for the British Animation Awards

2010-01-18T03:32:00.000-08:00

I found out this week that I've been nominated as part of Lipsync Post Graphics Team in the top three entries for the British Animation Industry Awards (BAA's) in the Best TV/Film Graphics category.

Here's a link to the news and sequence for Animal Planets rebranding where I animated the dog, meerkat and shark (which you can also see on my reel):-

News Item

Sequence

January 2009 Showreel

2010-01-12T15:55:00.000-08:00

Here's the new showreel then for January, on my work colleague Milan's advice I'm shifting out the old student character animation, which is after all over a year old, and putting on the Squirrels that I've done in the past week or so. Not much of a change as I think I'll be waiting a while for clearance on showing stuff I've done at Prime Focus World.

Shots 1-6 Solomon Kane Mirror Sequence - All Demon Character Animation and Roto Animation of stunt performers interacting with CG.

Shots 7-10 Hellboy 2 - Weapon Replacement and Particle Animation, as well as Roto Animation of Hellboy character for shading and lighting.

Shot 11 Animal Planet Ident Dog - All character animation and lighting setup.

Shot 12-13 Jungle Book Test Nag - All character animation including lipsync and basic lighting setup

Shot 14 Animal Planet Meerkat - All character animation and lighting setup.

Shot 15 Jungle Book Test Kaa - All character animation and lighting setup.

Shot 16 The Sting - Personal Character Animation (squirrel rigs provided by highend3d).

Shot 17 Solomon Kane Castle - Crow Background Animation

Shot 18-22 Hellboy 2 - Weapon Replacement and Particle Animation, as well as Roto Animation of Hellboy character for shading and lighting.

Shot 23 Keepy Uppy - Personal animation, Max Rig supplied by highend3d.

Show 24 Cartoon - Personal Character Animation, Max Rig supplied by highend3d.

"The Sting" - New Character Animation

2010-01-08T16:21:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been ages since I did any character animation, as I've been animating planets for nearly 5 months now at Prime Focus World so I thought I'd revisit an exercise from my post grad.

The dialogue is from the film classic "the Sting", which any fans of Hustle on the Beeb will know half-inched it's first series plot from! It's two of my favourite actors talking, in Robert Redford as the younger, brasher and in this clip angrier Johnny Hooker, and Paul Newman as the wiser Henry Gondorff.

I tried to give Redford (blonde squirrel) a more animated set of poses due to his frustration at this stage. Newman (grey squirrel) was more laid back, hence his languid animation style, i also wanted to throw in a bit of background animation for him with the coin toss. The lighting is a bit overcooked at the moment, but I should get a new version out on Monday. Hopefully that includes the whole film, Youtube and Adobe Premier don't seem big fans of the Sorensen compression I used on the Quicktime so the anim cuts slightly short at the end.

Check out the trailer to the film (the original dialogue is used at 35 - 40 secs):-

I love these guys as actors, there's something about them on screen and the aura they had. Paul Newman was more than just an actor, but raced cars at a championship level including le mans, and was a man of principle to the point he was put on Richard Nixon's dangerous enemies list during the McCarthy investigations. He made a mean salad dressing too. Rob Redford again is a great actor, but also a director (A River Runs Throught It is worth 2 hours of anyone's time) and also politically engaged.

As a double act, for me, they are THE greatest all time on-screen partnership, as they'd also prove in Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid.

December 2009 Showreel

2009-12-28T04:48:00.000-08:00

So here's my new reel which contains all of the demon animation work I did for Solomon Kane. The whole sequence has gone onto the net as a teaser trailer now, which is pretty good as it was my first piece of character animation for film.Here's the teaser trailer:-

October 2009 Showreel

2009-10-08T13:55:00.000-07:00

New showreel for October 2009 containing a couple of some of the demon shots I animated on Solomon Kane which are on the trailer. Lets hope this gets a release in the UK!!!

July 2009 Public Reel

2009-06-16T04:07:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a while since I've posted, just got back from Barcelona and am still currently on the hunt for jobs. BUT got clearance to show some test creature work I did, so hopefully you'll enjoy having a look at the two new snake sequences in the reel.

I was given a pretty free rein on this by my old boss Andy Morley and producer Stef Drury, so picked the backplate film for the python to work on, and how to animate the cobra. Good times recording scary snake voices into the Apple Mac!

Showreel Breakdown

Shot 1,2 & 3 - Hellboy 2
Weapon tip replacement and main Hellboy character roto animation for shading and lighting, as well as dust particle collision animation.

Shot 4 - Jungle Book Python Test
Motion path animation, using CV curve deformers. Camera track setup completed as well.

Shot 5, 6 & 7 - Animal Planet Dog and Meerkat Idents
Quadruped and Biped rig set, soft skinning and all character animation by Nick Hanks.

Shot 8, 9 & 10 - Jungle Book Cobra Test
Motion Path and Lip Sync Character Animation completed by Nick Hanks, also lighting shading rig set up.

Shot 11 - Animal Planet Shark Ident
Rig, camera setup and animation by Nick Hanks.

Shot 12 - 16 Hellboy 2
Weapon tip replacement and main Hellboy character roto animation for shading and lighting, as well as dust particle collision animation.

Shot 17-18 Spitfire
All spitfire and camera animation by Nick Hanks

Shot 19 - 24 Personal Animations
All character and lipsync animation, lighting and rendering by Nick Hanks, using own reference footage shot with camcorder.

April 2009 Public Showreel

2009-04-15T05:47:00.000-07:00

Hi, so here's the public show reel I'm going to be handing around. I've also got another reel for interviews containing all of the character animation work I did on Solomon Kane which hopefully I'll be showing as well at some stage!

All in all just a bit of tightening on the old reel.

October 2008 Showreel

2008-10-13T01:53:00.000-07:00

So here it is, my new showreel with the Animal Planet and Hellboy 2 stuff on there. There wll be an update as soon as the Solomon Kane character animation I did becomes available!

Hellboy 2 and Animal Planet

2008-10-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

Hi folks I can't get this stuff on embedded direct, as I'm waiting for DVD release on Hellboy 2 so the best I can do for now is the bold links below!

HELLBOY 2 SHOWREEL
(spears, blade, character roto and dust animation in the second half of the reel)

ANIMAL PLANET SHOWREEL
(dog, meerkat, shark and lettering animation)

We've also finished Solomon Kane at Lip Sync Post too, but again it's gonna be a while before that shows up, but hopefully soon I'll have (YET!) another reel up ready for my next batch of jobs apps.

I've had an awesome time again at LipSync so once again cheers to Andy and Stef for trusting my animation skills enough to let me loose on their work, the rest of the 3D Boys and everybody else who had to queue behing me for peanut butter on toast in the kitchen.

"Dust, people, dust!!!!"

New Showreel May 2008

2008-05-06T03:02:00.000-07:00

Here's my new showreel then:-

Can't put most of the stuff I've actually done over the past 7 weeks on it, but hopefully one day will become available to you the general public.

Cobra Strike

2008-04-21T13:04:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is the cobra strike.

Props out (in the words of Westwood and big Trev Nelson) to Andy Morley at Lipsyncpost for giving me the opportunity to animate there, James Nichols for doing the modeling and texture mapping and showing me how to assign UV texture maps (can't wait to see the final model when the texturing is finished), and Jon Wood for the lighting, spotlights rule and good to see my T2 lighting toned down slightly.

And her's a few stills from the sequence:-

So, there you go a work in progress looking OK.

Cheers guys.

Car crash test

2008-04-19T02:24:00.000-07:00

Been away for a while as I've been doing an internship / some freelance work at Lip Sync Post in London. It's been pretty busy (well as busy as you can be when your machine is rendering - so many cups of tea), working on a variety of things including Hellboy 2, a cobra animation for the company showreel, and this.

It's just a quick test sequence for a girl basically being hit by a car in a street scene, just to see what it might look like. Know it probably doensn't look amazing, but it's more of a blockamatic almost, but taught me how to basic texture, and got me used to planning shots and working with cameras.

Anyhow I'll stick up the rest once it's available, had some technical issues with fcheck Tiff's. So and sos.

Sorry folks had to delete this due to copyright stuff! Peas out.

A few bits of artwork

2008-03-06T03:58:00.001-08:00

Showreel

2008-02-12T11:13:00.000-08:00

Showboat

2008-02-12T09:45:00.001-08:00

Another piece taken from reference footage shot at home. Again once keyed in, certain poses were exaggerated, as well as positions adjusted to give a better looking strike of the ball etc.

Throw Animation

2008-01-30T05:20:00.000-08:00

Another piece of animation done from reference footage. I shot this out in the garden, and then put it into a quicktime movie for easy reference.

The actual throw is speeded up from 25 frames per second of action, compressing the same movement down to 15 frames of action. Whereas the follow through and walk back remains 'normal' or 'real' paced. A few of the poses and actions are also a bit more exaggerated than the original footage too, as this is supposed to be aniamtion and not rotoscoping.

Also rejigged my jump down, for aquicker air movement, and re rendered it too:-

New Showreel After Renders

2008-01-23T08:22:00.000-08:00

So here's another reel. Been doing more stuff, and tightening up the timing and animation on a few others. Hope it does seem tighter and neater than other reels though.

Renders

2008-01-21T12:24:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've just decided to render a few odds and ends here for the reel. So here they are with a few tweaks on the animation too:-

Jump

Matthew Perry - "Cartoon"

Steve Carrell - "Relationships"

Kingfisher

Wolf Run

New Showreel

2008-01-08T09:30:00.000-08:00

Right, as a result of the last couple of pieces I've done here's the traditional new showreel. Let us know what you think guys and gals, music by Simian Mobile Disco!

Jump Down With Stumble

2008-01-08T07:13:00.000-08:00

Back again, so just spent couple of days doing this jump. Shot a piece of reference footage for this of me jumping in the garden from one of the plinths. Will try and load that up as well. In the meantime here's the end result.

Weirdley noticed the character looks like Tal ben Haim or Dan Jackson!

New Lip Synch - Matthew Perry (redone + original version)

2007-12-19T08:20:00.000-08:00

And here's another version, following the discussion Tim, Wes and I had about a more realistic and slightly less cartoony style. Working through what's basically one pose in the whole animation.

Well, I've worked on a new direction here, trying a close up piece of animation. I threw in the table here for a bit of prop interaction, which really helped me get used to IK / FK blending on the model after some weird experiences. Most of the poses I used in the other piece are in here, but have been refined more, and as Tim pointed out I've tried to distill the acting more. I found watching a few episodes of the IT Crowd on E4 really helped me out as Moss (richard Ayoade) is quite deliberate as a character actor in his poses too. Some of what are though were key poses are I've now realised are simply inbetweens, anyhow I hope you can see an improvement!

So here's the original piece of Lip Synch I did, with Matthew Perry from friends. Tried to work on the acting and movement again on this. Looking back on it though it loodks way to flat, and the poses are crap, so it goes t5o show plan your poses in your head.

Latest Reel

2007-11-28T05:51:00.000-08:00

Right here's my latest reel then courtesy of Youtube! A bit of tweaking still to do on some of these pieces but it's my overall idea, gonna do one more piece before I go orund town next Week!

Reel Breakdown

1 Relationships - Acting piece, all animation by Nick Hanks using dialogue from Steve Carell and Max Rig from Highend 3D
2 Hummingbird - All animation and rigging by Nick Hanks
3 Monkey Magic - excerpt from film 'Soupcon', all animation, modelling, filming, compositing and scripting by Nick Hanks
4 Wolf Run - All animation by Nick Hanks - wolf rig by Drew Vaughan
5 Cheetah - Drawn Animation by Nick Hanks
6 Kids About - Excerpt from film 'Soupcon', all animation, modelling, filming, compositing and scripting by Nick Hanks
7 Ball Lift - All animation by Nick Hanks using Alfred Rig from Highend3D
8 Walks - All animation by Nick Hanks using Alfred Rig from Highend3D
9 Sugar - Lip Synch and animation by Nick Hanks using Alfred Rig from Highend3D
10 Fish - All animation and rigging by Nick Hanks
11 My Old Man - Excerpt from film 'Soupcon', all animation, modelling, filming, compositing and scripting by Nick Hanks

New Acting Piece - Steve Carell

2007-11-27T02:30:00.000-08:00

Right folks, thanks for all the comments. Used a lot of weighting on the tangents in graph editor this time round. I've also decided to switch to Youtube as quite frankly so many people are having issues with Vimeo playback right now. Really tried to texture this (cheers Tim), so that the intro is slow, the blah blah's are harsh movement wise, and the what are you talking about is somewhere in between, trying to show changes in pace and power, and to Mariano for helping out with Lip Synch pointers et al.

New Showreel 15th November 2007

2007-11-15T07:11:00.000-08:00

Right,

New showreel taking on baord everyone's advice about shortening it. Couple more animation pieces I want to do before I start hawking my work around town again!

Showreel November 15th 2007 from Spangles on Vimeo.

New project - Kingfisher / Hummingbird

2007-11-01T12:36:00.001-07:00

Amendment 21st November

Right animated the kingfisher with a new rig system after speaking to the guys at LAS last week. Now the main control is between the wings at the top of the spine.

Again, going on Neil and David's recommendations I'm now going for a more realistic style of motion. It's been hard animating after a month off temping, and I've found that using the footage as reference rather than rotoscoping (as which happened for the second half of the film) has made me think about what's going on a lot more.

Anyhow here's my first attempt at moving the rig:-

Kingfisher from Spangles on Vimeo.

So I've rigged up this kingfisher to play around with, it could be hummingbird too, I guess, but I'm going to sit down through some motion footage to decide what to do with it.Anyhow here's the rig:-

Showreel via Youtube Post

2007-11-01T04:52:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, seeing as Flash was having a few issues with some peoples browsers I've added the show reel as a Youtube link.

Cheers,

Nick!

Ball lift 3D view

2007-10-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

Right here's a cool thing.

pau.cc on Vimeo has used one of my animations within a 3D video environment! I think this looks really smart, and a clever piece of kit. Anyhow take a look here, it's a bit like playing where's Wally, but with Alfred instead! Just use the mouse clicking on screen to move the camera around.

pau.cc 3D video link
http://pau.cc/panoramicas/anim/belle_anim.swf

BBC Reference Footage Wolf Run

2007-10-12T08:18:00.001-07:00

Hi, been working on a new wolf run trying to use some reference material from the BBC Motion Gallery, an amazing site that is FREE too for all you animators out there!

Latest wolf run, with more extension on hind legs. Struggling with the rig here as it deform, otherwise I'd like to work on the rear legs more. Credit to Drew Vaughan who built the rig!

Wolf Run Post Wes and Tim Crit from Spangles on Vimeo.

So here's the basic wolf run cycle, I think the footage is running slightly slower than real time as the cycle seems to be about 16 frames and also annoyingly you can't see the wolf's feet on the Beeb footage. Anyhow here's my effort with background:-

Wolf Run with Background from Spangles on Vimeo.

And the BBC reference footage:-

Wolf Run Idaho from BBC Motion Gallery from Spangles on Vimeo.

BBC Motion Gallery - www.bbcmotiongallery.com/Customer/SearchDetails.aspx?searchText=wolf&type=Simple&itemId=f4102859-b9f5-41e0-a790-f105f2cfa9c9

Bowling Ball Lift

2007-09-30T05:25:00.000-07:00

Right,

Just done a lift with a bowling ball, thought about using IK on the arms but the control system is a bit weird on Alfred. I think this means the arms do tend to float a bit but I've tried to rectify this by putting in some more key frames using the ghosting tool.

Pleased with the body shapes on this though, and a little acting in it as well with the hand flex as I wanted to make it a little different.

Bowling Ball Lift from Spangles on Vimeo.

New Catwalk

2007-09-25T05:31:00.000-07:00

Right, just done a new catwalk, after looking at some of the students work on Friday night at the National Gallery, I had a real Eureka moment and realised about the hold on the hips. Hope this is an improvement.

Catwalk Hip Hold from Spangles on Vimeo.

Run Cycle

2007-09-14T07:43:00.000-07:00

Hi,

Just done a quick run today, quickened the pace from 60 frames for 6 steps down to 55 frames. Think it gives it a bit more speed (obviously!). Used the graph editor a lot on this to get foot positions right, and the feet should arc into position and not fall back onto a spot as they're planted so overall I quite like it. Crits welcome!

Run 55 Frames from Spangles on Vimeo.

Sneak and Catwalk Walks

2007-09-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

Right folks, latest, just got back from France, and am now trying a sneak and a catwalk walk.

So here's the sneak after Edwin looked at it, will post the catwalk when it looks vaguely half decent! Again positive criticism quite welcome... thanks El for saying you liked it full stop.

Sneak Walk Final from Spangles and Vimeo.

New Double Bounce & Photoshop for Bday Card

2007-08-29T05:34:00.000-07:00

Right, here's an adjusted Double Bounce Walk, tweaked the graph editor and broke the splines to give Alfred a lighter feel, quick up, slow mid hold and down, like a ping pong ball, adjusted his pose to give it more balance with less lean back and more pelvis rotation, after advice from DMCA, Eleanor and Wes. Thanks for the help guys and glad you like the angry walk!

Double Bouce post El, DMCA and Wes Crit from Spangles and Vimeo.

And here's a bit of Photoshop work I did for a friends birthday card.

New walk cycles

2007-08-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

Had a meeting last week with an industry insider who was kind enough to look over my reel. Like David Hamblin at Sony, Neil said I should work on some walks as this would be one of the most likely jobs to get started on if I get that first post, and to whack on five or six on my showreel.

I've tried to tone down my naturally cartoony style, but when you're using a rig like alfred it's quite hard. So anyhow here they are.

Angry Walk

Angry Walk Cycle from Spangles and Vimeo.

Sad Walk

Sad Walk from Spangles and Vimeo.

New Commission

2007-07-06T05:18:00.000-07:00

Got a first mystery commission (ha ha - you known who you are), so sketched up some of my life drawings. Tried a slightly Neil Buchanan use of pastel paper but here's the two pieces.

Finished Final Project

2007-06-26T04:23:00.000-07:00

Well here's my final project, not quite what i wanted but was as near as I could get in the timeframe we had to work. I'm pretty chuffed at how it's worked out rendered with the backgorund and has been a pretty steep learning curve too, with new tools in Maya, After Effects and Premiere.

Any comments/advice appreciated!

Final Project Compressed from Spangles on Vimeo

Showreel

2007-06-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

Here's my show reel.

Seems so short an amount of time for a years worth of work at college but good to see it all together!!!

My Showreel from Spangles on Vimeo

A couple more pieces

2007-06-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

Just done a few more bit of Artwork for my business card, including a colouring in of my Avatar.

Preview Film

2007-06-09T10:07:00.000-07:00

Right here's the complete script and animatic for the film.

This was edited together using Adobe audition, and used at a critique at the National Gallery with music students from the Royal College of Music, to give a further idea of our projects.

In the end I decided not to use any music, as I felt I wanted a more natural feel to the animation, as if we were observing these characters thorugh a window than via film.

Halfway Monkey Animation For National Gallery Crit from Spangles on Vimeo

Most of the animation is a bit floaty, so I've decided to go back to using pose to pose to get that crispness of movement back.

First 15 Seconds

2007-05-18T05:43:00.000-07:00

Right, I've had a fairly productive week, and am currently on schedule to finish right now. Managed to animate my first 15 seconds out of the minute's worth of footage, so here's the playblast for what I've done so far.

First 15 Secs - Final Project from Spangles on Vimeo

Here's the texture map I set up in order to compose the action. It's just a movie texture laid on a square, which acts as a virtual cinema screen in front of which the two monkeys act almost like stage 'actors'.

The film was shot at the gallery (thanks to Carol Hambleton and Lee Riley for seeting up the equipment and getting permission). You'll also notice the Purple primate, C, is now yellow, as he would have blended into the background too much, and now J has switched to a fetching lime green.

Invitation Photo

2007-05-17T09:29:00.000-07:00

Just set up a couple of 'Invitation' images for our end of term soiree. The first in 3D is just a render of my two characters, now rigged in Maya, striking a pose for the camera.

And the second, is my initial character sketch, buffed up with a bit of photoshop action.

Animatic and Script

2007-05-08T10:13:00.000-07:00

The next stage was to write the script. The stand out train of thought points for me were as follows:-

1) It's an ugly woman.
2) Or is it a man?
3) Either way it's invokes feelings of digust and ridicule (it is a cartoon by nature).
4) But if you think about it, it also brings out some pathos, as it seems a tragic situation too.

Wouldya from Spangles

Using these key points I wrote up a script, from the Monkeys point of view, trying to convey all of these themes within a supposedly humorous frame. Casting was simple for me, a colleague Tim McCourt would do one voice (having established that we both had seen these kind of characters down our local pubs), and less convincingly I would do another. After a few takes we managed to get a half decent effort, with which I then produced a short animatic for the National Gallery on the 27th April.

As you can here it differs greatly from the original script drawn up already as the script has evolved:-

First Script
Two monkeys, J and C, are at an art gallery facing us directly.

J:- Oi, oi, look at tha-ha-at.

C:-Gaw, no, she’s awful!

J:- She, are you sure? She’s got a hairline worse than your Uncles Dunston and Clyde.

C:- Oh-ho yes. I bet she can still move at the old, er, tea parties too.

J:- Really? Wouldya?

C:- Oooh, I suppose I’d have to do some of the old mon-key-mag-ic-ah. , a bit of the old cha-cha-cha. .

J:- You’d need a couple of jungle juices though, eh?
Before you…..

C:- Nooo-no-no-no… stop it, there’s kids about.

J:- Before you, er, you know, er, let her, ahem, peel your bananas like?

C:- Stop it. Stop it. Noooo. No-hooo. Well, maybe. Yeah, alright then.

J:- And your nuts?

C:- Too far. You little monkey.

Character Design

2007-05-08T10:05:00.000-07:00

With the idea of these two london wide boys in place, I set about the design. The painting certainly has a somewhat simian quality, and as had two London geezers commentating the only choice for me was two "Cheeky Monkeys".

Character sketch

Dimension Sketches For 3D Modelling

And here's the models I rigged up in Maya in their bind poses ready to go.

A second shot, here you still see the tail joint which in the end I didn't skin, as I thought animating the tail for 2 minutes would be a further pain in the arse, and I'd probably have only used it in one shot anyhow.

A transparency to give a greater idea of the skeletal structure.

Side view overlaid on initial dimensions sketch

Final Project Character Concept

2007-05-08T09:48:00.000-07:00

After picking the painting, I needed to get an idea of the two characters who would talk about her. With the idea of her being in a suburban nightclub, I thought the characters would be two dodgy, south london wideboys.

Here's a few examples of the kind of characters I had in mind:-

1) Gary Hobbs and Minty from Eastenders

2) Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse
Lee and Lance on Youtube

3) Danny Dyer

So basically one character is slightly savvy, but not too much more so than his mate.

Final Project with the National Gallery

2007-04-27T03:04:00.000-07:00

So for our final project we've been briefed to produce a one minute animation based on a picture at the national gallery.

The picture I've chosen is A Grotesque Old Woman by Quinten MASSYS (1465 - 1530).

It really jumped out at me, and is apparently based on an old cartoon by Leonardo da Vinci. For me this painting could come staight from the cover of a Terry Pratchett novel, and this style of cartooning is even more savage than some stuff around today.

The picture itself is a satire (my kind of humour) of women who dress far younger than their years. Quite appropriate as most of the nighclubs in the UK seem awash with this kind of divorcee nowadays. Apologies, went a bit Daily Mail there. Anyhow basically this painting is mutton dressed up as lamb.

Or maybe Tony Blair in a wimple?

Other paintings that made it close to the list were:-

Madame La La at the Cirque Fernando - DEGAS, Hilaire-Germain-Degas

The Fighting Temeraire - TURNER, Joseph Mallord William

Allegory of Love II (scorn) - VERONESE, Paolo

Anyhow if you get time, go to the gallery, it's free, and there's some paintings there that are worth way more than Cristiano Ronaldo's transfer fee, which is quite impressive really.

Week 21 - Lip Synch

2007-04-23T03:47:00.000-07:00

Hi, another piece of animation, in case you're wondering why there's a big space to the right, this was for a pairs project called 'The things they say'. This was based on parents talking about their kids, so I lip synched the mum, and to the right another student Franceso has done a 2D animation of the kid which has been put together in after effects.

For the moment though here's my stuff:-

Lip Synch - Week 21 on Vimeo

First Film From Last Term

2007-04-20T04:13:00.000-07:00

Well, here's my first film - Jenga Man. Looking back there's a few pieces of animation I still like in this and a couple that I really dislike, but nothings perfect first time round. Things I've learnt? That I nearly always end up with something too long, really get poses sorted out in your head beforehand, and storyboard properly!

First Film - Jenga Man on Vimeo

Avatar

2007-04-19T04:41:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, just drew up an avatar.

Application sketches for my Postgrad

2007-04-19T02:31:00.000-07:00

Short Course
Some of the first figure drawing I ever did on a Summer short course. Some of it I painted up in acrylics after, but i've left a couple with the original sketches alongside.

Other Sketchbook work
A few other odds and ends from my sketchbook that I submitted for the course.

Sketches

2007-03-20T07:22:00.000-07:00

Sketches from the previous two terms

A few sketches from the first two terms on my post grad at Saint Martins. I guess the longer the course has gone on the more my drawing style has loosened up. These are in time order, most recent at the top, so hopefully some kind of improvement will be evident, or not.

Characters interacting
For me this is one of the most interesting sequences of drawings as we see a fundamental part in human behaviour, in the way two bodies can express themselves and the effect that has on a relationship with others.

Close Ups Of Face Studies For Lip Synch
Just a bit of close sketching, getting some mouth shapes, and skewed perspectives.

Figure drawing

Again using a skewed perspective, whilst trying to keep the body in proportion.

Master and Servant (One Lady and her Dog)

One of the best things about drawing an animal is the line of the spine, as they are usually so more supple than a human. At first being a cat person, this really didn't appeal to me, but again the relationship between two characters in space seems interesting to me.

First Life Drawing

This first sketch is more about catching the movement of peering around a corner.

Sketch showing the relationship between the human and skeletal forms.

Life drawing (of a skeleton). Hmmm, not sure if that's the right definition of a dead thing, death drawing anyone?

The beginning...

2007-03-20T05:26:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

Well starting my first blog as an animation student at the London Animation School. I guess I'm doing this (like all bloggers, thesps etc) essentially for my self, none of this for my art crap. It's at lot easy to look at your work on a web page, than in about a million, well ten, sketch books. Make that two.

So anyway here's some stuff that I've been up to recently, and take it easy people...

Week 16 - Personal Lip Synch
A piece of animation that I did, using some dialogue from Pamela Stevenson in Superman III, a highly underrated film IMHO. Really enjoyed doing this as the timing is worked out for you using the dialogue and it gives you the chance to explore acting with the character too!

For some reason this got a lot of replay action at the Friday crit at college, I guess even millenium dome sized digital boobs have their fans too.

Pamela Lip Sych on Vimeo

Week 15 - First Lip Synch
The first Lip Synch I did in 3D, using a clip from the Princess Bride (a classic but not as good as I remembered!).

By the end of the week quite frankly I was "going mad" but it is one of coolest things going as an animation geek for you to see one of your characters speaking.

Week 15 - First Lip Synch on Vimeo

Week 14 - Expression Change
An attempt at showing expression change, which was a first for me using this rig. I think I watched too much Big Brother's Big Mouth that week (God forgive me but there was nothing else on after playing five-a-side), so the character turned out a bit too Russell Brand's Dad for my liking!

Week 14 - Expression Change on Vimeo

Week 13 - 2 Character Acting Animation
My first really piece of acting between, two characters on screen. Looking back this is a bit too "real time" in terms of pacing, but I often find myself at bus stops pubs etc, watching this kind of stuff, and smirking at the impromptu comedy on show.

Week 13 - 2 Character Interacting on Vimeo

Week 12 - Body Language
I animated this Lego Chef, in order to get a bit of body language on the go. It was the same rig set up as for my mood change project, but I learnt a couple of tricks of the trade such as visibility of objects in order to do my Lego Pancake.

That was a good shrove Tuesday, mmmmm lemon and golden syrup.

Week 12 - Body Language on Vimeo

Week 11 - 4 Legged Run (Wolf)
Main thing I learnt from this was that a lot of animation for me now flows out from the root of the spine, through the body, and out into the tail, head and legs.
This killed me the first time trying to get my head around these concepts, but looking back helped me develop my own animation technique.

Week 11 - Wolf Run on Vimeo

Week 5 - Fish
My attempt at Finding Nemo! Used a variety of techniques that were new to me here, including Dope Sheets, f-curves, and motion paths, on Maya the software we're using. After watching a thousand fish at London Aquarium, I tried to capture the quick slow glide movement that small fish seem to have in the water. Even now though I still like the little guy!

My Fish! on Vimeo