Girl with One Eye

Oh dear, i've neglected my blog again. Shame on me.

To be fair it has been a very busy couple of weeks. You see I have been freelancing at a place called Hubink. You can check out there site here. Its been a very enjoyable experience so far, with a number of jobs which I have had complete creative control over, which to me was exciting. I have been mainly working on flash banners, but I have also been working on a few pieces of motion graphics for a couple of websites. There is one in particular I have been happy with and I hope to put in my next showreel or on vimeo. They have also offered me a part time job, at least 2 days a week, which after 2 months of almost no work is great relief.

Im not sure what days im working next week, but I am also working at Clemengers tomorrow. Its my first time back in a couple of months and they asked for me personally which has never happened to me before.

In animation news, not a whole lot to report,  Loopdeloop is running twice this week. Once at the Loop Bar as usual on Tuesday night, but also this Thursday at The Warren as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival. This months theme was "Down the Rabbit Hole" and there have been some great entries. You can check out mine below.



Its a little different to what was originally envisioned, and I had an incident where the original .fla corrupted so I had to reimport the .swf and reapply all the dropshadow effects frame by frame which was a pain, but ultimately I am still happy with the outcome.

On top of this loop screening on Tuesday and Thursday night, the following 2 loops will be on cycle at The Warren all week which is cool!





Unfortunately, because I have been so busy freelancing and because this months loop to so much longer then it should have, I have not got to touch Nimbin this month. Hopefully next months loop theme wont drag out as long and I can get the scene I had been working on completely finished.

I am also needing to buy a macbook for freelancing, so doing so should allow me to work on Nimbin and other things during my lunch breaks. Im also looking forward to getting one of the new Wacom Inklings, as im sure it will allow me to start posting a tonne more doodles.

Also worth noting is that on Friday me and my partner will be going to see Gotye in concert which I am pretty pumped about.

Thats about it really, no screens to show off, feels bad man :(

Mr. Big

Well, its a day later then it was supposed to be, but a late update is better then no blog update.

So as I sit here listening to "Icehouse - White Heat", let me tell you all about the goings on in the wide and exciting world of my animation.

I suppose the first thing I should talk about should be the Nimbin Pilot, which now im looking at it isn't so much a pilot as it is a reintroduction to the series set an undisclosed amount of time after episode 5 of the original series. But I think for the series after this short, I want to start all over again, telling Gerkinman's origin story and then having that lead into the main Nimbin series. The reasoning behind this was that I had originally written Gerkinman's origin story for use in a graphic novel (How to Pickle a Gherkin), but looking at it now I think it would be better suited to animation, mainly because it can be read in its entirety in less then 10 minutes, but also because animation is so much more dynamic. Its not as short as what I had originally planned for the series to be, but I think if im going to be trying to sell the series to TV networks, or at the very least pitching it, the story I had previously written would be better suited. That doesn't mean I wont release the shorter episodes I have written in between major episodes however. Anyways, You can find some final renderings from the first scene below.











I still have 2 and a half scenes to finish in this style, but if this scene was anything to go by it shouldn't take more then a few weeks.

I have also started work on this months Loop De Loop, with the theme "Down the Rabbit Hole". The animations will be getting screened as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival. You can see a screen below. What does these two handsom gentlemen flying through space in a convertible have to do with rabbit holes? Well thats a secret!



I also managed to watched the entirety of the series Adventure Time in just over a week. Its the first time I have really sat down to watch a series in great length since last years season of Dr Who. I remember seeing the pilot for adventure time back in 2008 and being excited at the prospect of it being developed into a full fledged series, but aside from the odd episode here and there I had not really had the chance to watch it at length. Ive got to say I was very impressed by it, I think there was only one episode in the whole series to date that I didn't find entertaining. It was refreshing seeing something that really captures the essence of being a kid but isn't afraid of dark themes, or flat out disturbing imagery (Like seeing a bird turned inside out and hopping hopelessly as it tries to fly). Im looking forward to seeing more of it as it comes out.

And really, thats about all this week. Maybe next week when my Loop is finished I will have something more substantial to talk about.

Peace out!

State of the Art

This new and improved version of blogger is pretty neat, oh sorry, I didn't see you there.

Well its Friday, and that means im going to update my blog, as id like to update it at least once a week and Friday is a good day.

So this week, first week with internet in a while, what did I do. I have set up a Vimeo account finally, you can check it out here. I also uploaded my loop for last months LoopDeLoop to youtube.

It was well received on the night which is always nice.

I also updated my website, redoing the animation page and also adding a page for the Nimbin character models to the Graphic Art section.

Speaking of Nimbin, heres a bunch of new screens, some of these you may remember from my last blog which were of the animatic, now they have backgrounds. Woh...

























There will only be a few more shots after this that will be rendered in this style, and then it switches to the new character models posted earlier in the week. Its a bitter sweet parting, but one that needs to happen for the sake of ever getting this pilot, neigh, series! completed.

As far as personal life goes, I still havent found work, but I have found out that through one of the recruitment agencies i get work through, they will pay for me to do a 2 week course through Lynda.com. I am currently talking to them about doing the course in After Effects, as I would like to get out of web and more into the film - television line of work.

I am also currently looking at going to university to study film and television, although choosing a university is tough as they all offer different things.

And thats about all for now, lets see what next week brings.