Information Animations for NCC

I've recently completed my third animation for Nottinghamshire County Council, which helps to explain the "Disabled Children's Access to Child Care" (DCATCH) service to children and young adults with special needs and learning disabilities. It has been important to keep this animation cohesive with the others for NCC, so it feels like they are all coming from the same place and are designed for a similar audience. Furthermore, the animations will all feature on the same webpage - so its good that they will fit well together.

I've found in the process of creating these 3 animations, certain elements of design techniques and animation transitions etc. have become more formalised; so I will be revisiting the EHC animation, to bring it up to the same high standard as the more recent versions (and of course - adding in eyes!)

To view the animations, please check out my website (click here.) I have posted some screenshots of the animations below to give you some idea of the content and style.

EHC Animation

Short Breaks Animation

DCATCH Animation

Animations for Nottinghamshire County Council

Just a quick update..

I've recently completed my second animation for Nottinghamshire County Council. This time, for the Children's Disability Service, explaining their Short Breaks and Personalisation service. This can be found on my website here. I'm pleased to say that it has gone really well and that I'm now working on the next animation for the Children's Disability Service.

Alongside this, I will be completing a couple of animations for Dr Clare Bale explaining a Pathway for children and young people with concerning behaviours. Furthermore, I was recently asked to film Nottinghamshire County Councils SEND Conference in February, so the next step for this will be editing and exporting as videos of keynote speakers and vox pop interviews. It's great to be busy!

Animation for Nottinghamshire County Council

I have recently completed this Animation working with the great folks at Nottingham County Council. It has been a real pleasure working with them and I feel like I got a lot out of the job. From a conceptual point of view this has certainly been one of my favourite projects so far as I was let loose to storyboard the entire piece myself. It was also left to me to source a voice over artist, so I thought of a friend of mine - Laura Bozic who did a great job. For the soundtrack, I came across audionautix.com which is a great website for music which is free for commercial use (so long as you credit them.)



A summary on the development of style..

In the process of creating this animation, I have learned that it's important to get the style confirmed early on in order to save time later. I knew that style/concept visualisations were an important part of pre-production but in this case, time was a limitation. I had my hands full working on and making suggested changes to the 6-7 minutes worth of content for the animatic.

My initial animatic was met with a surprising amount of enthusiasm, given that it was the result of quick photoshop sketching from a storyboard I had drawn by hand. Some were even questioning whether it was the final product. I had found that my standard procedure of doing things, co-coincided with the style/concept that they were looking for, but I hadn't yet realised this.

Still from original animatic

I thought "great - they will love the final version," and got cracking. Previously they had provided me with reference from Powtoon.com - the black silohuette characters - to provide me with a final finish to aim towards. I had always wanted to get more experience with vector graphics and using Illustrator so I saw this as an ideal opportunity. Here is the first "final look" I created for them ( I spent several days on applying this look to a portion of the animation, before our scheduled feedback session.)

Whilst I was quite proud of this - the subtlety of tonal change to define the horizon, the texture, the smooth motion blurred motion and the perfectly symmetrical characters, I sensed in the Skype feedback/development session with the chaps at Notts CC, that they were slightly disappointed with it.

So later that day, I emailed the client to ask whether there was anything they didn't like about it. This was then followed up by a call which was the turning point of the project. I had a massive "aah ha!" (eureka moment) when I realised what they liked about the animatic was the simple naivety of the style; the way it looked like a child had drawn it. We discussed ideas around this theme (e.g. using a pencil texture and keeping with the stickmen) and it was also suggested I physically draw in the character (or create the impression I'm doing this.)

The audience (0-25 with special educational needs & learning difficulties, their families and linked professionals) became a prominent part of my understanding on how I should approach the style. I researched and found that the key things that appeal to children are: characters clearly depicted in their environment, colours and a simple, accessible style. I remember the maths books I had at school with the squared paper. So, I threw all these elements together and hey presto! Everyone was happy again!

New technical/business skills gained

So aside from learning to nail down the style as soon as possible; I've also picked up some new technical skills - such as using the pen tool in Photoshop to create smooth lines and curves then applying a brush texture to fill the length of this line. Also, filming my hand drawing in the character. For this, I printed the already-created Photoshop stickman onto green card. Then I filmed my hand drawing the character (only the pencil isn't touching the page but just following the printed line.) I removed the green in After Effects and replaced it with the background and character. I applied a stroke effect to make it look like the character was forming as a result of my pencil.

A final positive outcome from this experience is picking up new business skills, including working with a large client, making proposals, subcontracting other professionals (i.e. the voice over artist and her agent) and communicating via Skype. It has been a fantastic project to work on and I look forward to working with them again in the future.

The Monsterophians - Illustration

This is my design for the first "Keeping It Brief" brief. A blog set up by Gareth Sharples for Falmouth students and graduates. This month's brief was to create a music band of monsters. I sketched out many potential characters beforehand which helped inform my final designs here. I'm quite happy with the character designs - if I find time I'll add in a bit of colour. I imagine them to have a carribean sound.

Fin. "The Incomplete Activist" with CreativeConnection

My role

As it was a small creative team, my job was not restricted into one small area, but traversed many roles. I was bought in from the start, to collaboratively engage with what the client was after, brainstorm ideas and help put them into action by producing the first bits of stop motion animation with the team. From then on my job was to work remotely with all the stop motion footage they recorded.

The work involved animating, compositing, adding effects, creating smooth transitions, working to a voice over and editing. Whilst being given plenty of stop motion material, backgrounds and precise instructions to work with, I also had a fair amount of creative input in terms of applying some of my visions from an animation point of view to their ideas and visual output. In this respect the work was very symbiotic. Generally speaking I was very happy with my position in the project as I found it to be dynamic, diverse and interesting.

Teamwork

Throughout the production of the animation, I received constructive feedback after each EIP (Edit-In-Progress,) which allowed me to continuously improve on the work by making changes and bring about further cohesion. At these points they would also supply me with more stop motion material to fill in the gaps of the script. Throughout the course of the project and through applying their feedback, I have improved on my editing technique - more specifically, the art of joining together a voice over with text, sounds and visuals whilst maintaining a good pace and flow.

It has been a good learning process in terms of working with others. I have learned to respond to criticism constructively, to be flexible about changing things that are not working and to accept that not all my ideas will be implemented. On the other hand, it has been highly rewarding to receive very positive feedback and I have gained a huge sense of personal satisfaction on fulfilling what has been required of me. The CC team and the client have responded positively to my output so all in all it has gone very well.

There has been a high amount of creative input in this project from all involved and it has been great to work with such enthusiastic and skilled artists, as well as a talented writer (script) and actor (voice over.)

What is it about?

The film is designed to educate people and dispel the myths of what activism involves, how it comes about and what activists are like. It is full of interesting visual metaphors which takes us into the heart of the activist.

The client who commissioned it, is currently doing his PhD and writing a thesis on the subject. We listened, as he explained his thesis to us, following this, our mission was to condense the content of this thesis into some key bite-sized chunks of information that can be manifested and absorbed in animation form.

Purpose and audience

Hopefully, the film will resonate with audiences across the spectrum, enlighten them with knowledge which is otherwise not obvious or explicit and inspire discussion and debate. It will be shown to hundreds of communities across the U.K. and uploaded onto an intellectual virtual space as well as Youtube.

Visuals

As you can see there is a nice D.I.Y. feel about it - most of the elements were made by hand, and once they were sent to me I comped them together, adding animation and effects where necessary. A big part of the animation was creating smooth transitions which, with the help of a computer - one can be ridiculously perfectionist about! This is a big part of animations charm though so I feel it is worth the time.

I am proud to have been a part of this great project and I anticipate it's release into the world (this September/October.) This has been a different type of animation project to the kind CreativeConnection normally work on - so hopefully more like this will come, as I would love to work with them again!

Credits

Voice Over --- Philiph Bosworth
Script writer --- Dann Casswell

Director --- Ariadne Radi Cor
Producer & Co-Director --- Jessica Harvey

Illustrator --- Lara Popovic
Animator & Editor --- Charlie Minnion

Made by CreativeConnection : www.creativeconnection.co.uk

Fin. "Love Soldiers" @ the RCA - Screenshots & Learnings

Over the last few months I have been spending a couple of days a week helping out Chloe Feinberg on her 2D animation "Love Soldiers" at the RCA. I am pleased to say that the film is now complete and has screened at the RCA shows.

My job has mainly been scanning in the hand inked frames, colouring sequences in Photoshop and compositing in After Effects. More specifically the compositing involved putting in camera moves, time re-mapping, generating effects, creating the animated film grain, bringing together several seperate layers into one scene, and embellishing the look of it. Chloe had a very clear vision in her mind of what she was after, so my role was very much acting as a technical support and following her direction.

It has been a really interesting project to work on, and great to work with such a passionate and driven director. Chloe has worked tirelessly day in and out on the film, it has been a massive labour of love and I am happy to have contributed towards making her vision come to life.

Screenshots
As you can see - it has a really nice aesthetic quality to it - a great quality of drawing, line, colour and texture. The film itself is one that keeps the viewer engaged, curious and entertained. The style has captured a surreal dream-like essence which works symbiotically with the content and nature of the film.

Chloe's statement:

" I see animation as a way to re-invest in representations and impart them with something strange and intoxicating. It enables me to create narratives that weave a kind of personal mythology out of dreams, fantasies and memories. My degree show film explores images that are born out of excess, and the project is a synthesis of many personal interests, including; erotic comic artists of the 1970s and ’80s, surrealism, perfume segments on home shopping channels, male sex idols of the ’80s, and the work of artist/animator Suzan Pitt. "

Learnings

I have learned a few little things (some of which are thanks to some helpful RCA students - cheers chaps!)

Boiling

Learning a method for producing a boiling effect (i.e. making the lines wobble a bit - like in Rugrats.) This has been achieved by using a loop of 3 frames. So it goes 1,2,3,2 then this is on a loop. The frames have been hand drawn, with the intention to simply copy over the exact same line again - this produces a nice subtle boiling effect. Alternatively, a similar effect can be achieved with turbulent displacement though it seems much less effective.

Time remapping

Getting used to working in the time remapping graph to re-tweek the timing of a bit of animation. I was asked to replicate the timing of a bit of animation to match a reference film clip and was able to work it into a tee using time remapping.

Consistant frame rate

I have also learned that it is wise to keep things all at the same frame rate (i.e. if the lines are boiling on 2s then any other animation or effects should be in sync on 2s as well), otherwise you get a bit of a weird strobe-ing effect which isn't so good on the eyes.

Motion paths + natural camera movement

Working directly with motion paths seems to be the clearest and easiest way to manipulate the movement of a camera. Alternatively, you can parent the linear/bezier movement of a camera to a null, then use motion sketch to apply a subtle natural camera move by hand (ideally with a tablet) in real time.

Photoshop actions as an indispensible colouring aid

I have also learned how to colour a sequence in Photoshop quickly by utilising actions. This has had a significant impact on speeding up workflow.

Using Final Cut
I have now scratched the surface of this lovely and intuitive editing program, perhaps one day I'll get it myself but until then I will make do with my trusty Adobe Premiere.

Using a Mac

It has to be said - whilst I have used Macs on rare occasion before, my computer at home is a PC with Windows and this is what I have become used to, so I feel like I have got much more used to using a Mac - I'm now bi-computeral :-)

Interestingly, it has actually changed the way I use my PC. I have downloaded a plug in which allows me to colour my folders - I highly recommend this as it enables quicker navigation through windows explorer if you have a large amount of files and folders to navigate in one project. Also using a Mac with 16GB of ram has inspired me to start jumping between different apps on my computer with more confidence and efficiency - no longer strictly keeping one app open at a time but working more simultaneously across apps - unless it slows down my computer! So yes - next step is to upgrade my PC to 16gb ram which I hope to do imminently.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed my time working with Chloe and Filip (Fil inked all the frames) at the RCA and feel like I got a lot out of it. At times, there was a lot of pressure on and things could get a little stressful, but equally there were also some great moments where we were all "in the zone" and it was a laugh. Alongside Chloe and Fil, I also had the privilege of working with other artists on the project and I was chuffed to be part of the RCA scene. Meeting other animators on the course and attending a couple of fascinating lectures. One from animator Michael Dudok de Wit who has won a BAFTA for his film "Father and Daughter" and another from Ed Cooke - an expert on memory and imagination. Good times :-)

Rigging a puppet in AE + Moodboard

Rigging a puppet in After Effects

This character was provided to me by Lara Popovic from Creative Connection and she enquired as to how I would animate it. Using puppet pins was the thing that jumped to mind.

I used a couple of resources to learn and apply the process of rigging - a page from ae tuts+ which has a complete set of tutorials by a dude called Daniel Gies, and this great free plug-in - DUIK which creates Inverse Kinematic movement in just a few clicks once you have the pins set up.

Rigging a character with IK allows for its movement to be key framed by animating just a few controllers. It means that the knees and elbows bend automatically as a result of moving other parts of the body. Once rigged in this way, animating is a much simpler process then it otherwise would be.

Expressions utilised (mainly for my own reference) 

The expression used to connect puppet pins to their respective nulls:
 n=thisComp.layer("layer name"); nullpos=n.toComp(n.anchorPoint); fromComp(nullpos);

This makes it easier to control as nulls are directly accessible and also are not just limited to transformation - i.e. they can be rotated as well.

If using the rotation movement of one null to drive the Y transformation of another null (both attached to puppet pins); the following expression could be used in the affected nulls position:
PosX=transform.position[0]; PosY=transform.position[1]+thisComp.layer("layer name").transform.rotation;[PosX,PosY] 
I used this to make elements like the sides of the shirt move up as the legs are rotated.

Incidentally, I am keen to get my head around JavaScript - and I have started to go through this page found on Motion Script.com - written by Dan Ebberts - this is a fantastic resource for learning expressions and scripting.

Mood board

I created this mood board to serve as visual reference for the animation I'm currently working on with Creative Connection. It is themed on community activism. The images are from several sources - Banksy, Modern Toss, The Mighty Boosh and a book called Traveller Daze.



visual attributes -  earthy colours / graffity / stencils / DIY style (torn newspaper etc.) / simple + effective. 

CBT promo film complete!

It includes time lapses, a composited news room, a sound track and some nice motion graphics. The image below the embedded video provides some idea of the content.

Drawings + Love Soldiers update

Drawings

I got stuck into some drawing yesterday - really enjoyed getting into 'the zone' with it all..

Hands are a tricky thing as they are so versatile so I practiced sketching my own hand.

These sheets contain some drawings of my g/f Nina and some things I drew without looking at any reference including a small self portrait.

These sheets show my visual interpretation whilst listening to some podcasts at Radiolab - one on inheritance and another on speed. Both very interesting! Anyway, it's good practice for drawing quickly + aiming to get information across efficiently.

Inheritance

Speed

"Love Soldiers" update @ the RCA

Here's a pic of our studio with director Chloe in view.

"Love Soldiers" is slowly but surely coming together, and the way that we are working is fairly organic. Some shots are nearing completion whilst others are yet to be animated.

Recent tasks I've completed

- Inking over some animation of a face falling into pieces.
- Colouring a sequence in Photoshop (here the Photoshop actions have come in as a great time saver.)
- Utilising a turbulent displacement effect in After Effects to make it look like the clouds are warping/moving.
- Rotoscoping over printed live action shots of walk cycles.
- Compositing layers of animation together.
- Producing (creating a time schedule.)
- Scanning the inked animation.
- Updating the edit-in-progress.

I'm aiming to keep doing a couple of days a week here, though I try and do more if my schedule allows. It is a fun project to be working on and these are great people to be working with!

CBT promo complete + Luksus Ident for LS

I have now officially completed the Clear Blue Therapies promotional video! It feels like a good achievement, and I hope it does well on the Kickstarter page. It is not up there live yet, but I will be sure to post it when it is.

Here is an ident I coloured/textured and animated (The drawings were provided from Chloe.) This is the fictional film company ident that precedes the animated film "Love Soldiers" that we are working on at the RCA. Chloe was after an 80s style (I think the light rays could be a bit post-80s but it is quite a nice touch!) This took around half a day. I got quite into the timing of it - as soon as one effect stops another one starts.

Kickstarter CBT promo video update & making of

I have almost finished this project now! It has been a bit of an epic and has drawn on my skills as a motion graphics designer, compositor, camera man, editor, 3D artist, time lapse recorder and musician! If anyone has any ideas of one word that I could use to fit these different roles, I would appreciate it! Audio-visual artist could be a good umbrella term.

Just a quick reminder - this work is for a promotional video made to represent Clear Blue Therapies on Kickstarter. Clear Blue Therapies is a therapy business founded by Saskia Griffiths-Moore. The video utilises motion graphics and draws on a news broadcaster theme to promote interest and help delineate Saskia's four phase plan.

Here are a few screenshots showing different parts of scene 2 on which I have created some nice bits of animation / motion graphics. The actual film itself will be out on Kickstarter soon - I will keep you posted. I just have a few final bits and pieces to sort out following some final feedback from Saskia.

I enjoyed getting the pencil out and drawing this piece to represent a conference.



Following this, I worked over it in Illustrator, then animated it in After Effects. Playing with the opacity of the fills adds a nice element of visual interest to the image. Also, conceptually, I reckon it enhances "the meeting of minds" element.



I also found it quite rewarding and satisfying working in 3D for parts of this project. The spinning logo and the books turning. Simple but effective!

And - this is a bit of an odd one - I'm quite proud of the train style LED text I put together. The font itself is called LCD Dot, and was created by Omer Kose --- http://www.omerkose.net/ I downloaded this off Dafont.

The bit that I'm proud of is the nice repetitive dot pattern I created in Illustrator for the LED light background! This lines up with the dots of the font. Then of course the colour and glow effect. It mimics the train style LEDs quite well. As things have turned out, I have been asked to change this style as it could be confusing, and takes away from the cohesion of the other fonts in the video. Think I may have taken Saskia a little too literally when she said 'text like you see on train displays'. Nevermind though!

Watch this space! The promo video will be out shortly....

Royal College of Art animation project - Love Soldiers

Love Soldiers directed by Chloe Feinberg

Recently, I have been asked to offer some assistance on a project being created at the Royal College of Art on the MA Animation course. Love Soldiers is a hand drawn 2D animation, which draws inspiration from the likes of David Lynch. Chloe described it to me as "a surreal dreamlike fantasy with 80's male sex symbols set on a luxury yacht. A lot of it is reconfigured pieces from films of the 80's (usually with macho cop guys.)" Having watched the animatic a couple of times I can safely say that it is quite interesting, unusual and unconventional to say the least! Here are a few images that give some idea of the look/content of the project. The top right image is how Chloe intends the final film to look like.

So far, I have helped out with a bit of animating, producing and compositing. As there are only a handful of us working on the project, the nature of my role crosses different areas which keeps things interesting. Having said this, I believe compositing will be the main area I will be working in, as I have a good knowledge of After Effects and Chloe is keen to get the majority of the hand drawn animation done herself. Below are a couple of stills from two shots that I have animated.

The workflow goes like this -

1) Filming or sourcing reference
2) Drawing a style frame to get the sketch and shading right
3) Rotoscoped hand drawn animation, (just the lines)
4) Inking the lines
5) Batch scanning
5) Colouring in Photoshop
6) Comping in After Effects + layering on some actual film textures
7) Editing / Sound

More recently, I have been compositing. Putting together several different layers of hand drawn animation. The technical hitch was that the paper used for animating on had it's peg bar holes punched in slightly different places which meant once I had batch scanned all the work in, the animation wobbled constantly from frame to frame which is not how Chloe intended! To get around this issue, I drew 2 little crosses in the same place on every frame and voila! - a bit of position/rotation stabilising in After Effects led to a much smoother playback of the animation, as it was intended. It was quite satisfying letting the computer sort it out rather then trying to manually adjust each frame in After Effects.

The experimental nature of this project makes it a joy to work on. It's great to be back in a small team again collaborating on a short film, and quite a novelty to be at the RCA. 

Animation, vfx and self-promotion work

Since moving to London in September, I have actively been seeking work in animation and visual effects. Alongside this I have been developing the look of my website, creating a visual identity and two new showreels - one for my general moving image/animation work and the other - more specifically for my compositing work. Here are the shots I have been working on:

Unidentified sea creature - 2D animation

A 2D animation created using Flash, textured in Photoshop and composited in After Effects. This was sparked by a quick doodle I did of a Fish/Robot hybrid that breathes fire. No fire breathing in the animation yet but perhaps this is something I will come back to in the future!

'Harry' the crab - Match moved

I initially created this crab in 2010 using Maya to model and texture it. I always wanted to place it into a real world environment striking a pose! Back in Cornwall I filmed a bit of it's potential environment and last month I finally got round to stabilising the footage then placing the crab into this environment using Match Mover and Maya. Following this, I added a touch of colour in after effects. This is best viewed in HD. To do so - click this link, turn on HD and scrub to 00:54.

Vfx breakdown - Placing a house onto Bodmin Moor

Here is an image I used in an earlier post. I have uploaded this image here again in order to precede the matte painting breakdown of this shot that I completed a week ago. Breakdowns are always a fun way to display the amount of work that has gone into a shot. This shot was created for a MA student film project entitled 'Gone.'

  

These shots have been included on my Moving Image and Compositing showreels respectively. This week I am going to continue applying to jobs and learning new things!  

Showreel 2012

My latest showreel, marking the end of my Digital Animation degree. A selection of shots from throughout the last few years which focus on compositing but also demonstrates my skills in animation and 3D. The first two shots are from our 3rd year final major project: Kernal. A CG animated film I worked on as part of a team of 17 which we have now completed and anticipate entering it into festivals.

Progress!

I have been very busy since my last blog (hence the lack of blog posts.) I am currently working solely for Kernel which is the main 3D animated film being produced in our year. Since completing a lot of concept design work I have also created the new storyboard for Kernel. From this, I have been able to develop an animatic that has progressed through 6 stages (from an epic 6 mins 38 secs down to a more realistic 4 mins 11 secs.) In the process of refining the animatic, I have kept the essential story information, cut out whats not needed and maintained a good sense of pace and rhythm.

From the animatic, Olly and Hugh have been creating block-throughs in Maya. These Maya shots - that dictate basic animation and camera moves - are being carefully timed to fit with the animatic. (I have also helped by going into Maya and adjusting the camera sequencer lengths to block-through shots that were completed prior to the final animatic.)  The idea is that people who're doing the animating can work within the appropriately timed shots that maintain the correct pacing to the film as a whole. Its an intuitive process and of course, the animation will probably not stick to the frame counter exactly - so long as it roughly fits with all the original timings then we're on the right track!

My roles on the project have extended to editing and compositing for which I have been getting to grips with Adobe Premiere (CS5.5) and The Foundry's Nuke (6.3 v2) software. For both of these I have been working my way through some helpful books - 'Adobe Premiere - classroom in a book' and 'Nuke 101' by Ron Ganbar. Both of which, give you files and exercises to work through. As the editor, I will be constantly updating a premiere project file, as the shots gradually progress from the block through stage to animation and eventually the final composited shots.

The image below shows what I have learned most recently in Nuke. Using a rendered 3D sequence of exr images, I have rebuilt a basic beauty pass which mirrors the way a beauty pass would be created in Maya. The advantage here though, is that the beauty pass has been divided to its essential elements - which I can tweek independently. Working this way should prove highly efficient as it allows one to have good aesthetic control over the shots and save on the lengthy processing and rendering times Maya would incur. The bonus is that the files that Ganbar has provided with his book is of a lemming 'road-skiing' using a car. Amazing!

The Kernel team have been working really well together and it feels like we're building up a creative symbiosis of all our talents. If we maintain this kind of momentum then we should have something good to show by the deadline which is now less then 100 days away!

Aside from Kernel, I have been working on the dissertation and am currently 2 weeks away from completing a Web Communication Dreamweaver AQA course. Busy busy busy!

Final Concept and Background art pieces with WIP

To say I have been busy is an understatement! Over the last 4 weeks I have completed and handed in work (in time for deadlines) for 4 separate projects - including my CND film.

Final Pieces:

Kernel directed by Olly Skillman-Wilson.

Wife Left Home directed by Tom Gameson

Newgrounds project - London riots animation - Directed by Tom Gameson

Kernel directed by Olly Skillman-Wilson.

My role: Concept Art.

Brief: A concept art piece establishing the Greenhouse in it's city setting. Composition to look down between 2 buildings. There must be a layer of mist caused by the pollution.

At first I was unsure how to go about this - how does one draw a futuristic city with realistic perspectives? To get the ball rolling I went on intuition and made a little futuristic city in my bedroom out of stuff from around the house.

Maya came in very handy for this project.

I printed this screenshot off and worked from it getting the colours, adding in new ideas and more detail inspired by the photos I took of the city I made in my bedroom.

The next 4 images were achieved in one all night session as the deadline was approaching..

These billboard sketches are an important part of the setting. The protagonists character is enhanced and developed through his conflict with the doctrines of the society in which he lives. On a visual level these messages should stand out. Olly states in his script: "...the darkness of the smog and urbanity lit only by its media"

Olly gave me some pics where he caught water droplets on the lens of his camera and took photos of lights at night. I then brought this into Photoshop and applied the linear burn layer style to merge this in.

This last pic is with Olly's additions. He has added a looking-through-window effect which has really enhanced that 'you're there' feeling about it. The flares are a nice touch too. Nice work Olly :-)

My friend Marcel gave me some good feedback suggesting that further improvements could be made by lighting up the front of the skyscrapers at the bottom of the screen. This would help define them a bit more against the background without taking away from the murky misty effect.

Wife Left Home directed by Tom Gameson

My role: Concept Art

Brief: Design a nice morning environment around 'Dim' (the main character.) It is a typical English town.

Some of Tom's inspiration. Artwork from Pixar artists using marker pens and ink.

I used the same media here:

Using Photoshop I enhanced the colours:

Shell and Paddy directed by Thomas Spettle

My role: Background artist

In this shot we see a chase. Paddy chases Shell but then trips up over this branch-like creature. I reckon it should be quite a funny scene!

I checked with Thomas about not getting this done in time for the pitch - he was cool with it. Unfortuantly I couldn't complete it in time with all the other projects going on. Hopefully I will get it done soon. From now on I will add in 1 contingency day every week into my schedule to allow me to achieve all projects in time.

Newgrounds project - London riots animation - Directed by Tom Gameson

My role: Background artist

Tom did a bit of animation for my CND film. In exchange, I have produced 2 backgrounds for his project that he was working on throughout the Summer at Newgrounds.

For these, I have worked a lot by hand before going into Photoshop. Ralph Steadman has been a big inspiration for Tom so I tried to incorporate elements of his style into my work.

City background

Prior to this I did 4 half hour A5 tests of different styles. Tom picked out the one he liked the best - a bit of collaging with Ralph Steadman style lines. He wanted the buildings to surround and overwhelm the character.  For the final piece I worked in A3 using the same method as I did for the test. I then worked these up in Photoshop.

This is where Photoshop came in.

Park background

In this shot we will see the camera pan down on the right, then track to the left (hopefully these are the correct film camera terms I'm using!) Tom specified that the background is a bit run down, tucked away on a hill somewhere in London.

Tom's layout design:

My 20 minute Photoshop sketch just to get the depth values and a bit more definition.

I produced these elements by hand using Ink and pastels. I used pastels purely to get the colour and Ink for everything else. Here are all the different elements brought into Photoshop.

My first real go at Photoshop painting (of the rubbish) - using photographs for direct reference. Halfway through I thought 'Hang on - I can get Adobe Illustrator to do what I'm doing' so I did that for a test. It was a bit quicker doing it using Illustrator (the colour 6 filter) but I was pleased that when I did it myself in Photoshop the result was 10 times better.

The resolution of the full Image is 6344 x 2813 to allow for all the camera movements.

In this close up shot you can see the level of detail with a crisp packet stuck in the tree and plastic bags trodden into the dirt.

That's 4 weeks worth of work crammed into a couple of hours of blogging!

On a side note, I will be going to Bristol this Saturday as I have been invited to the showcase and prize-giving event of the CND film competition at Watershed cinema. I'm quite excited about seeing my work up in front of an audience!