Long time no post!

I've been neglecting this old blog since I got the zumf.co.uk site up! It doesn't deserve to be left out in the cold so heartlessly so I'll give the old fella's hairy belly a good old scratch now.

Because the company that the site was registered to has become a devious crooked organisation, the site may be down for a while. They wanted to charge me extra for renewing it and tried some very crude, underhanded tactics to try and get me to pay for services I didn't want, so I'm letting it expire.

Hopefully I'l get it back up before the end of the month, but if that fails I'm going to have to register a new domain-name, which sucks.

I've been very very very lazy with not doing ARTS and animation. I don't have any excuse except a low-self-esteem issue and sheer LAZINESS. Maybe some time in a hippy nature commune would get me back on track and looking at life more positively... Who knows? For now I'm just gonna have to bully myself into action or tempt myself by promising to buy an Amazon Kindle for myself as a reward...

Ho-hum.

Facefaceface

I did this for my mum's birthday - Believe it or not, she did ask for something like this! She was planning to make a clay sculpture and wanted ideas.

This is a little departure for me, because I've drawn a relatively symmetrical face that's not (too) ugly! Also I made sure when I was drawing it not to use total black or white, because I've ruined a few by over-darkening them which makes it difficult to adjust afterwards.

Enjoy Facefaceface!

Zombie o' clock!

"Ahhhhrrahhcchhh!!! Nnnaaang!"

- That's what he'll be screaming as he runs towards you.

This was actually a very cute, cartoony zombie back when I started it. I didn't do a great job with the form and colours of it at first so it was left in my pile of unfinished pics until now. Decided to go to town on the putrid ,stringy flesh and stretched skin and tendons.

I've been told I need more BLOOD. Yes. Yes I do.

New blog layout!

I've gone into the guts of the html and sorted out a few width and general aesthetic issues (didn't realise you could do that with Blogger!) Wordpress makes you pay to tinker with the code which is a massive saucepan of wank.

Lookin for ideas

Since some of my best work comes from suggestions from friends, I'm asking people for theirs! I'm looking to diversify the pictures I do, but would like to keep to the same sort of style I used for Mr Swann.

So if you've got requests, reply below!

Mr Swann

"What're you lookin' at, you CANT?"

Ok! Going to be working on a scanned in sketch soon

Based on my character "Mr Swann", who's not a very nice man. Will hopefully be uploading it later on tonight.

Quarter of a century!

Yup, I'm 25.

Fun times. I'm still working at an Advertising agency in Shrewsbury making Flash banners and email newsletters, which is dull work, but it pays.

More time for personal projects is needed.

Let's start this shit up again!

RIGHT! I've started writing this blog again, just because it's something to do.

Lots of things have happened since I last posted... My animation won Best Student Film at the 2009 Flip Festival (which was an unexpected surprise!), I met the Brothers McLeod and several other prominent figures in web animation... And I got a job making Flash advertisements in Shrewsbury

It's a good opportunity to refine my Flash skills and also venture more into web-design.

I've made a few nice little animations since then and I but I'll have to ask permission to put them on the site (shouldn't be a problem).

2 days to go

I've gotten a hell of a lot of work done over the last few days, most of which I'm proud of. I can definately get it all done in time, but I'll probably tinker with the animation and sound after I've handed it in. 

Something I'd all but forgotten before the last 2 weeks: I really do enjoy my work when I get into the flow of it. There are few other things that would grip my attention so much I would let my tea go cold. I will definately be animating in After Effects again. I already have some ideas of what I want to do... 

The CRUNCH

As I write this, sweating anxiously, I am 7 days away from my deadline. 
I always seem to have an awful lot to do despite making steady progress. Now that I can see the end in sight, the rate of work is increasing and so is my stress-level.

I've got some very good work done over the last few days. I'm especially pleased with how my aubergine suicide shot worked out. All the animation for that scene is done and dusted but it still needs sound and shadows. I also drew the microwave for the final scene. Spent a disproportionate amount of time on it, but it looks good.

I'd better get some sleep. Lots more to do tomorrow.

Making tomatoes move

Today I did some more animating in After Effects. I worked out a few things that I was uncertain about before but I think I'm on the right track.

What I did mainly was sort out some of the facial movement on the big tomato. I'm establishing shorter and faster movements than I was using before. It's trial-and-error animating, but I'm pretty inexperienced so this is probably the best way to do it.

I'm pleased that I'm making quick, intuitive decisions on what to draw and how to animate it and the results work as well or better than I expected them to.

Something else I'm experiencing is that when I am mid-way through a shot I think of other things I could animate and ways of doing them. I wish I had time to fit that in, but I'm just gonna have to write those ideas down and come back to them at a later date.

What I'm working on

I'm currently in the second semester of my final year here at the University of Wolverhampton (land of bleakness and doom), so work is coming along on my final year project.

In reality I'm doing several things in addition to the main animation, but they are all lower priority. What I'm working on is a 2-minute cartoon called Vegetable Panic. It's all drawn in photoshop and animated in After Effects - This is my first project where I've used After Effects but I'm picking it up very quickly and enjoying it too.

All the pre-production is taken care of by this point so I'm drawing the character-models (very complex, lots of layers and detail) and backgrounds, objects, etc. Animating it and working on the sound will be a big task too. I've got less than 2 months left here and I've got to get my ass in gear.

More on this project later

Pop! There goes my blog cherry.

Hello, whoever you are! I don't know why you're reading this... Maybe you're trawling the internet in a sleep-deprived stupor, maybe you've got a strange obsession with reading terrible blogs. Whatever the reason, welcome.

I've come to the decision that blogs aren't all for emos and narcissists (just mostly). This is why I'm going to be smearing my mind-goo all over this page over the coming months (maybe years if it goes ok).