Exhibition

A couple of weeks ago I had a little exhibition. This is what it looked like...

And here is my latest painting...

"The battle of trafalgar"

Backgrounds... so far

Here are the backgrounds I will be using for my final film. As you can see, I still to add the odd bits of detail.

This I will do over Christmas, but for now, I need to make a neat and tidy storyboard and a presentable animatic.

City centre pan

Test animation

Starting my final film

Summary of my film so far

Basically, the idea behind my film now is that Lard is taking his dog for a walk. The film will be based on the work of Ivan Maximov. I'll upload more later...

Lard: Background characters

Here's a couple of background characters

Lard poster

Here is a quick poster designed for my final film, So far production is going smoothly...

(Smoothly like an elderly man's ear)

Painting weasels again...

Here are a couple more paintings...

"Oh dear, A weasel just hit the window"

"Going to co-op"


-

Other things of interest....

1) Today I brought a printer

Another Lard Related Idea

I've changed my story again! Here is the new synopsis ...

Lard's Day Out
Lard is surprised to find his father has taken him to a desolate wasteland. As his father settles down to relax for the day, Lard explores the dead barren lands that surround him in the hope of finding something interesting to occupy his time. Suddenly he stumbles across a stranded polar bear. After briefly assessing the situation he decides to help the polar bear out. Together they build an aircraft and the polar bear ultimately finds his way back home.

This story is a lot more simpler then my previous ideas, but I think because of this I'll be able to work a bit harder on the animation itself. At the moment, I'm working on concept designs and such, So we'll just have to see where it goes.

I have also thought of some pretty interesting ideas for Lard's character. As soon as I have figured them out myself, I will post them up...

Other things that may or may not be relevant...

-The onions in my neighbours back garden have magically vanished

-I've started writing a new book

-And finally, I move out in a week! Yay!

Rotoscoping

I thought I'd have a go at rotoscoping.

This animation has a monster

Hello.

I can't remember why I did this one... But nonetheless here it is! Yay!

E-Sting update

I have tried to make some "improvements," but it's not easy...

I keep getting distracted. I have recently discovered that my neighbour has a large amount of onions. There has to be at least a hundred and five onions... What is he up to?

I will continue to update news of this event as it happens...

Final Film Synopsis

---

"LARD: The Movie"

The weekend is normally rather relaxing for the small child, simply known as Lard, but then the strange appearance of a polarbear changes his life forever. The two characters quickly become friends and everything suddenly seems possible. But meanwhile, Lurking in the background, an ex-military animal control officer plots to destroy the polarbear in a elaborate attempt at gaining fame and fortune. Sadly the polarbear is finally shot. But from the experience Lard learns several important lessons of life and the true value of friendship.

---

Yeah anyway, It is a rather dramatic, and people used to my cute and cuddly style are in for a shock. The movie will work on a whole new emotional level that I have not done before but don't worry! There will be a lot of fun and laughter as well. Hopefully it should all balance out...

Holiday fun...

Oh dear, I've had a bit of a slow start, I've not been working as hard as I origanally planned. So far I have done four pages of sketchbook work, two animations, half a portrait of my nan, and written the theme song for my final film.

Anyway, The animation test you see before you is inspired by the animations of Ub Iwerks, (The guy who created mickey mouse.) Ub could do up to 700 frames of animation a day! This is an animation world record. As for my test, The animation is very poor, especially the walk cycle at the beginning, the timing is also very sloppy.

I am currently working on my lipsync techniques, as I think dialogue will play an important part in my finished film. The character is a singing pirate...

Showreel 09

Well here it is, A summary of everything I've done this year. The past decade has been very, very boring, I just hope this isn't the high point of my life. But saying that, I'm really looking forward to next year, It could finally be the year I take charge of reality.

I'm still sticking with the "Lard" idea for my final film, and I've decided not to make it too epic, instead I would like people to remark upon leaving the screening, "Yeah, That was alright."

"Finished" Lipsync

Here is my lipsync project at it's peak before I decided not to work on it any more. The sound is the is still my dad but this time I have added a farmer. And farmers are interesting.

E4 competition

I've decided to enter E4's "rather lovely video competition." This first animation is a practise run for the slightly better animation I'll do over the summer. Hopefully.

The rules for the competition...

1) No exploding heads, guts, animal torture, toilet-based unpleasantness, full frontal nudity, etc.

2) It HAS to be EXACTLY 10 seconds long.

3) It HAS to have the E4 logo in it.

Stopping my animation career going down the toilet

To get my animation skills up to scratch, I need a lot of practise. So I'm going to use my character "Lard" for a series of painful animation related experiments. I'm going to start with basic movements and cycles and slowly work my way up.

AfterEffects 3D test

I've started a mad attempt to develop an interesting, dynamic opening sequence for my final film next year, and so far it's not going well... But I'll keep trying!

Time wasting - Part 4

The main structure of the book follows an ongoing business meeting, between the different characters. The presentation giving by Kreski himself, is based on a super hero called "Captain moose." The presentation of course, is never resolved.

Thats it so far.

Time wasting - Part 3

... The narrative is a bit all over the place. At any time you will be introduced to various characters and events. Time and space ill-logically flow in random unpredictable patterns.

Time wasting - Part 2

Here are the first two pages. It's impossable to read like

this so I'll give a brief synopsis of what happens...

Basically the story is a murder mystery that follows a group of various characters.

The main guy, Kreski, Is based loosely on a greasy guy who I sometimes see on the bus in the afternoons. Other characters that feature in the story include a mexican (The victim), Mr kite (who's just a bit strange), Robert Young (Who is always angry about something), and of course Kreski's disabled wife (Who doesn't have a head.)

Time wasting - part 1

My assessment is coming up soon...
So I decided to start writing a graphic novel.

Lip Sync test (without the lip sync)

This is just a test to get the movement of my character right. The sound itself is a strange, old recording of my dad. This is how he normally talks.

The man who became a bus stop

Buses are annoying and expensive.

Weasel on the Beach

This was a painting I did for mum.

Pondering fish waiting for a piano lesson

I like Pandas. This is the painting before I added a photograph of Dan Hills.

The fantastic Hotdog concerto with seven trumpets

This one was inspired by the work of Dali.

memories of Venice

This is a study of a painting by Canaletto (1697–1768), called

"The Grand Canal from the Piazzetta."

If I was a viking

Here is my first attempt at a self-portrait. I thought I'd better do it now before I get any more uglier! (I'm also wearing a viking helmet.)

Here is a preview of my BBC project so far. I will upload the whole lot when I've finished off the sound.

Joe Weasel

My finished stop-motion puppet, "Joe Weasel,"

Now to film it...