Artwork

Last post of the year, Here is Jeff and Lolly again in keeping with the icy weather.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all.

Artwork

Continuing with the Christmas theme, here is another previous years Christmas card design.

Artwork

We are having our Christmas party today so in honor of that here is a previous invite to a party from a few years ago. Mark is the big boss. Happy Friday everyone.

Christmas card art

I'm feeling festive so here is our Christmas card art from 2007. That's Lolly and Jeff at the bottom. You will be seeing more of them later.

Backgrounds

Here is the finished BG. I believe this background was only used for a few scenes in one episode. So much effort for so little screen time. But there was a lot of time and effort put into this series from both us and the company in France and everyone else who worked hard on the series. We loved Nine and all the villagers.... sniff

Artwork

Here is the cleaned up drawing. It then gets scanned into the computer ready for photoshop. I will put up the finished colour version up tomorrow.

Backgrounds

Here is another Franks Cat Back ground. First off is this, the pencil drawing. The backgrounds are approved firstly by the pencil drawings. Then any amendments required can be done at this stage. Once they are approved they are then cleaned up. I will show the cleaned up version later.

CG Artwork

These are more computer characters made for a small interstitial.

Artwork

This is another cell from Rubbish King of the Jumble. I have flipped the back view of the cell just so its easier to look at and compare with the front. The drawing above the cell was on the animation paper that was with the cell. You always have a bit of paper on the back of the cell to protect the painting. Cell cell cell, just thought I would add the word cell a few more times just to be sure.

Artwork

Here are the initial character ref for Boo! Each episode he is dressed as something that relates to the story. Here is Train Driver Boo, Bubble Boo and Tiger Boo. These are painted on water colour paper then given to the CG dept for building.

Artwork

This is a development drawing for a pilot we did years ago. Poor dead meat!
That's not the title of the pilot! That was just a comment. I can't see anything being commissioned with a title poor dead meat!

Artwork

This is the front and back of one of the Madonna cells from the Rod Steward - Motown Song video. You can watch it here
I did some shameless plugging.

Artwork

These are some bugs used for a short skit for Mr Maker. We did all the animation in that series too.

Artwork

This is another concept character pic showing the stages from rough to computer model.

Backgrounds

Here is the finished background. All colour done in photoshop. In this scene Bigtop is sitting at his desk with the candle lit, hence the lighting.

Artwork

Here is the picture from before but with a clean line ready for colouring. The bed, table and stool are on different levels so animation can be put behind them. You can see the back of the walls continue through the bed where you wouldn't normally see but this is for safety just in case in a later episode the bed or table need to be moved into a different position. It allows flexibility.

Backgrounds

Here is the pencil drawing for a Frankensteins Cat background. This is the reference copy given to the colourists from the BG artist. It is to show how it should all look put together as the BG artist gives all the elements to the colourist separately with a nice clean line ready for colouring. This is also to indicate how the shadows should work by the blue shadeing.
The bed, table, stool, candle and doors are all a separate drawings to allow the animation of the characters to be put behind them or to be replaced by animation of the doors opening for example.

I will post the finished BG soon.

Character Development

Here is some character development work we did. Starting with some rough scetches then some less rough scetches and when the general character is decided it then get's built in 3D. Sounds easy! But it helps when you have some very talented people doing the work. There is another one of these but with a different character I will post soon.

CG Artwork

Here is a picture of some concept work for Jim Jam and Sunny. We did all the animation bits in that series and this was for a little animated section. They ended up not being used in the end. Shame really as they are quite sweet.

Artwork

Here is a picture showing two characters on a cell, the back and front view of the same cell. This is how 2D animation was always done, each frame of movement was an individual painting. Each colour would need to be painted then left to dry then the next colour painted on top then left to dry and so on. But what was the tricky bit was when painting on cell you would work backwards (as the actual painting would be done on the back of the cell) so you would start with the outline then paint on top of that. So click on the picture to see it bigger and have a look at the back of the cell (bottom half of the pic). It's quite interesting.... or is that just me?

Artwork

Here is a bit of concept art. We have been doing some shorts for the Prince's Rainforest Project for You Tube which Paul has directed. He was coming up with an idea to illustrate deforestation and this is one of his preplanning idea scetches. What it shows is the usual pattern that loggers produce whilst ripping up the rainforest. They start clearing a road like path through the trees then start clearing other paths from those paths. You get a pattern that resembles this picture. Have a look on google earth and look at the Rainforest (for example in the Brazil area), you will find an awful lot of these patterns.

Artwork

Here is a picture with some key positions for a character which was traditionally drawn. The posses with the missing mouths would have had lots of different mouth positions on it during the animation. Click on the pic to make it bigger, the quality of line is lovely. Something you dont see much of these days with digital art and digitally drawn lines.

Artwork

Here is an old advert to accompany our website at the time. So now you can make a nice green box if you so wish. We had quite a few scattered around the studio at the time. Oh the hilarity.

Artwork

Here is an old poster, it was also the design of our old website. Lots of boxes on moving conveyor belts. It also pointed out our many mediums as this was shortly after we joined with Elm Road animation so Stop Motion was added to our many skills.

Artwork

Here is Nine and his Dragon Tail. We first coloured it Purple (my favorite colour). But the producers wanted it Red so we changed it. But ultimately the Director wanted it green so that's how it ended up in the episode. I should also mention that this episode is Tail Of Tails which won a Pulcinella award at the Cartoons on the Bay festival!

Artwork

Here is a picture of some cranes. It was for the Tweenies, you can see Milo Fizz and Jake as vehicles. Not sure where Bella disappeared to.

Artwork

Here are some character designs for a project we are playing with.

Artwork

Here is a page from a rough storyboard for an 11 min Pilot we made recently. The whole 11mins were roughed out in 5 days, then the clean up and tweaks took a week (with an over lap so a total of a week and a half). Not the way we prefer to do things but sometimes we have no choice! Helps when you have a good team. I like the drawings as they are but you have to have it all tidy for clients to refer to.

Backgrounds

Here is a BG for the reflection in the lens of a camera in the Frankenstein's Cat episode Film.

Artwork

Here is another unused design (due to time) for Edward D Edwards. Here he is as Dracula. You can see Curtis Joblings design pencil sketches and the finished Flash model put over the top. On the right is the Gypsy Woman design that was used in the episode.

Artwork

Here is a picture to show an unused design for a lizard wedding from Frankenstein's cat. This section was cut for time but we loved the lizard. All the designs were built in Flash using design drawings from Curtis Jobling. I will post more up soon.

Backgrounds

Here is a rough for a BG. It is meant to be hap hazard and messy but all ready in this rough sketch all the details are pretty much there.

Artwork

Here is a sheet with various character sketches for the character Sniff.

Backgrounds

Here is an early BG. This was for a project called Scratch N Sniff.

Artwork

Here is a Rubbish King of the Jumble pencil drawing. Note the little note on it pointing out the cloak (you will have to click on the picture to make it bigger). The quality of line is lovely, something you don't get much of now a days.

Logo Archive

Here is one of the original logos from when we used to be A for Animation. I found this from a small section of a cell.

Artwork

Here is a picture of Rubbish.... that's Rubbish King of the Jumble!!
Watch the title sequence here!

Artwork

Look! A dope sheet! You don't see many of these now a days.

Artwork

Here is a still image from the short Ghost Trees for the Prince's Rainforest Trust.

You can watch it here

Artwork

Here is a picture to show all the individual elements for the cut out section we did for Robbie the Reindeer: Legend of the Lost Tribe.
All the elements were drawn and painted on watercolour paper then animated in After Effects.

Backgrounds

Here is a background from the Frankenstein's Cat series we worked on for Mackinnon and Saunders. We did the animatic, episodic props / character build, animation and backgrounds for 13 episodes which was a co-production with Kayenta in France. The BG's were traditionally drawn (on paper!!) then coloured in Photoshop.

Logo Archive

Here is the chainsaw we had as a logo for a while (long story). We decided to change it when we started to work on various environment issues such as deforestation.
I should add that we have been suporting charaties like the Woodland Trust since the early naughties. We have also been recycling for over 12 years.

Logo Archive

Here is Mr Bulb in all his glory! Awwww.

Logo Archive

This is an old advert and Logo, Mr Bulb was very sweet and he animated on one of our previous showreels. I think it was after the 10th "but he isn't energy efficient" comment we decided to move on.

A bit more

Just a few more tweaks. A nice picture added at the top under the title, it was drawn on paper and everything!

Hmmm

Coming soon, just keeping an eye on things for now!