Lots of exciting developments!

It has been a little while now since I have updated the blog, but I haven't been a total couch potato for the past two months, I have had some very exciting new opportunities recently.

First of all, I completed the work I was doing on a health and safety video for Touzie Tyke in Glasgow. This project involved animating two simple bird characters in a kitchen scene, which had been created in Adobe Illustrator. I worked exclusively on the animation in the scene, primarily using Adobe After Effects.

I also gained some invaluable experience collaborating with Glasgow company Smudge Digital, animating the main character in a low-budget Scottish documentary. The documentary itself was filmed in live-action, and a group of animators and I were contracted to create 30-40 second animated insets which broke the film up, giving extra appeal to the audience.

Now that the aforementioned project is in post-production, I have started to relax again and will be pursuing personal projects for a little while. I hope to have designed and digitised another pirate-style character to fit in with the others that I have designed in my last few posts.

Additionally, I may have some extra work coming my way from Smudge Digital. This time the work would guarantee pay, which is always a bonus. The upcoming project is, as far as I know, for an animation which will last around 10 seconds.

I will also, hopefully, be returning to Touzie Tyke to complete more work on additional health and safety bird videos in the near future.

First Mate Arceus Firion

It has well and truly been a while since I last logged in to express my thoughts and to update the blog to reflect what I have been up to. However I'm here now, and have quite a lot of information to get through. First off, at the end of the last blog post in January, I stated that I would be going back to the new "Gump & Gil" cartoon and have it finished sometime the following week. I finished the two scenes that I had been working on and once again put the episode on hold as more important stuff came to my attention.

Since my last post, I have managed to secure some upcoming studio experience in an animation production company named "Touzie Tyke" based in Film City, Glasgow, and will soon be working on some commercial adverts for a well known power company, if things go to plan. 

I have also managed to get some animation work on an independent movie through my contacts at Smudge Digital, also located in Glasgow. I have already started some animation tests for the aforementioned movie, which I will share on the blog at a later date. 

My most recent work has been another character design, a character from the same pirate universe as the last one.

 

Next on the agenda for me will be to finish the animation tests for the movie that I mentioned and will also be creating some test work for the adverts for Touzie Tyke. I will also try to do another character design during this period, as it really helps me to unwind after animating.

Captain Avery Scythe

As I promised, the digital character design that I have spent part of today working on. Avery was planned to be the main character in my pirate comic, created as part of a university project. However, the project didn't really evolve into anything. I decided to just convert my sketch of Avery into digitally inked to get some practice in.

Next, as previously mentioned, I will get back to working on the next "Gump & Gil" episode, which I will hopefully have finished at some point next week. In-between working on this project I will also continue to design and digitize characters in order to build up my website.

My website is finally complete!

After a LOT of tweaking and playing around with various settings, my animation website is finally live! There are still a few things that I would like to add to it, and a few minor tweaks still to make, but basically, I'm finished.

Next on the agenda, I will continue to work on the "Gump & Gil" episode that fellow animator Jon and myself started a few months ago. I will also continue my work on character designs and digital work for the website. I will still continue to post on the blog, as well as the site, to retain a place in which to share my thoughts.

I hope you enjoy the site, and that it manages to showcase my work more effectively than the blog gas done thus far. My next post will most likely be my next piece of digital work, that is nearing completion, then this will be followed by the completed episode two of "Gump & Gil."

The finished site can be found here.