3D Printcup - Done!

So I received my printed out 3D Printcup on Friday and have had the weekend to paint it (which wasn't too bad as I had a great excuse to sit out in the garden in this lovely sunny weather!).  I've posted a couple of pictures below of the finished piece - so please do say hello to 'Percy Pimpertail'!

3D Print Cup

Cartridgesave are currently running a great competition to win a 3D printer!  You design a character and they then print it off, for you to battle it out in a Top Trumps style battle.  The overall winner then wins a 3D printer! 

Working as a 2D/3D Animator, everything I create is usually shown on a flat surface - paper, computer, TV.  I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to have something I've designed flat, come to life as a 3D object I can actually hold.   I've never seen a 3D printer in action, so watching it at the test session was really interesting.  I was lucky enough to hear about it through fellow freelances in the studio I share with them, and since quite a few more have entered so it should be quite a competitive night!  It's great to see everyones different styles and designs for their characters, and it's been fun to work up on of my own initial 2d sketches into a 3D model. 

Here's an image of the test print of a little bird I designed.

Cbeebies Winter

Say hello to Josh, his sister and their friends the ducks. Keep an eye out for them on Cbeebies in the recent Winter ident I did for them. Will post the video soon!

Little Dudes

Little Dudes, a blog for things to do in South Manchester for babies and toddlers, has done a piece on the Autumn animation I did for Cbeebies. Read it here

Autumn Watch

The above image is taken from the recent Cbeebies ident I worked on called 'Autumn'. Watch it here

Hey Little Cupcake!

Here's a sneaky peak at my winning window design for Hey Little Cupcake! and Spinningfields in Manchester. It's currently winging it's way to the printers, so when it's up on the window I'll post a few pics of the final image. Until then keep your eyes peeled, and maybe treat yourself to a delicious cupcake whilst you're there!

DFF for Young

I recently worked on this film for Young through Kilogramme. The image above is taken from the section I did of the piece. It's a charming pop-up book world and as always with Young, it's a beautifully designed piece and was a joy to work on.

Brrrrrrrr-ear

A scarf is becoming mandatory at the moment. Even for bears. Sadly this fella didn't make it into a recent project, but at least he's toasty warm. Due to the tiny scarf obviously, not his massive fur coat.

Happy ever after

I animated this piece for the lovely people over at Young. It was a really tight turn around, but fun to work with such great designs. Watch it on vimeo here.

Hello Autumn

Some concept work for a Cbeebies Autumn ident. Will post the final animation soon, as I've heard a lovely rumour Cbeebies are starting to show it this week!

Hey Cow

Concept work I'm doing at the moment. It's for a short film so will post more soon.

Jump around

I did this little piece for the E4 E-sting competition.

Sharpie

Crikey it's been a while apologies!! We'll skip over that and my lack of blogging and get straight on with the juicy bits...

http://vimeo.com/25811815

The above is an image from the recent film I've completed with Kilogramme. It was made for a project called Sharp Futures. The aim of Sharp Futures is to encourage schoolchildren from underprivileged areas of Manchester to consider a career in the creative sector. Three schools were shortlisted to have their storyboard for a film about the environment animated. It was a close competition with all three schools producing some excellent ideas, but the winning pitch was decided as MCMA Boys school. I've been working with the students since the end of last year and did the majority of the work on the film's direction, animation and design. David Ridges animated Sharpie's pipe travelling scene with Jon Turner lending his 3D max skills to the project as a whole.


The majority of the content of the film were decided on by the students and they got a brilliant reception at it's premiere on Wednesday night! Plus it involved me animating a lot of penguins, which is surely a bonus in anyone's opinion?! Particularly when one wears a tie.


Hope you like it!

A buzzy bee...

Here are a few business cards I've been making. Ribbons and buttons (I love buttons!) make up these little flowers, which turn into brooches you can pin on to jazz up your outfit.

Hopefully they'll bring a little smile to whoever gets one, and give the wearer a little buzz...sorry!

Socks away

These are 2 designs I entered into the "Design a sock" competition via the Print and Pattern blog. They are not exactly patterns, but I think a bit of scribbled colouring-in gracing a leg would look delightful!

38 days to go....

So it was pancake day Tuesday, followed by the beginning of lent. Other years I've given up the usuals of chocolate, cakes (was going ok, until I remembered my birthday falls during lent!) and ice cream. This year I've turned my attention to biscuits.

Now I didn't use to be that much of a fanatic on the old biscuit crunching, unlike an old housemate, who we would often find curled up in his bedroom with the freshly topped up house biscuit barrel emptied, smothered in crumbs and a dazed, bewildered look as to his last half an hours crazed actions. Yet since leaving Uni and working in a studio, I have literally become the cookie monster! Endless cups of tea have always kept me going, but if there's a packet of biscuits somewhere nearby then I can't seem to resist a dunk as well (chocolate hob nobs being my preferred favourite...the king of all biscuits where a spot of dunking is required, as Peter Kay will back me up on).

So on Wednesday, with a lonely cup of tea on the desk, I drew a few of it's forbidden companions for old times sake. I feel its going to be a long 40 days...

Walk like a Robot

Hmmm so it's been a long looooong looooooooooooong time since the last post, but I think we should skip over that!

I've been pretty busy, with quite a few projects on the go. Here's a couple of images from the first for a pitch, with a robot theme (if you hadn't guessed...)

Christmas cheer

Just 2 weeks to go....to get you in the festive mood here's an image from an animated card that I've been working on at the moment.

Wibble Wobble

Here's some jellies to help you get into that Friday party feeling.

And that's NO accident

This is an advert I worked on last month with Kilogramme, for Camps Solicitors. It's on TV in the Northwest at the moment, and I think after that it's getting rolled out across the rest of the country.

I got to direct it, and do a fair bit of the design work which was brilliant. They wanted something lighthearted, with no accidents in sight and happy smiling people. I think you'll agree, that with the national treasure that is Richard Briers doing the voice over, it definitely gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Like Chai Latte. Now where is that chocolate fudge brownie...