Tuesday 30 September 2008

New Faces, New Sketches...



Some Cats and a bloated Pug. I have recently discovered Ralph Bakshi (bought a book on him and am currently working my way through his Films). I had heard of 'Fritz the Cat' before, but my favourite so far is 'Coonskin'.



I did these pencils last night whilst my tea was cooking. I have gone for the Warner Bros/Daffy Duck torso design and am careful to steer away from drawing him like Sylvester (the whole clown cat thing).



I want this character bauling his head off, I like characters that have a real good cry and let it all out. Basically Daffy when he was high strung, yeah possibly in a Tony Hancock situation.



At the moment all he says is 'I don't wanna!' and cries like a child over nothing. Woah... Just a minute! I think those hilarious Bakshi transvestite characters maybe the source of influence on this cat.

Monday 22 September 2008

Monday 15 September 2008

The beginning...

Rustic Dreams - My first real Directorial effort back in 2005.

Let's Forget University. It was shit... Let's move on. I pitched a project to Middlesbrough's Digital City Fund to create an animation concept I had dreamed up in my final year of my degree.














Rustic Dreams was the pitch, a ten minute story conveying the idea of people lacking individuality and interest and the main character returns and invents something to remind his home town of their lost spirit. The reverse idea of reality that he went to university and became a wonderous imaginative inventor and it's his home that has become dull and empty.











Anyway we pitched it, it was accepted, we got half the money we wanted so created a 3 minute demo. Which looking back was probably the best thing, even though I was furious at the time.

It was completed on schedule despite the fact the team due to lack of funds was split three months in. We went home and I ended up having to animate and edit the whole thing as well as find a composer. But creative control comes at a cost.




This has been screened at a few things to positive feedback including the BBC Hull city screen. Digital City also liked it though they kept that to themselves till I returned to Middlesbrough and saw clips and images of it plastered on booklets and promotional bill boards.

I still like this piece and it got me multiple interviews at games studios! Non of which were successful. Shit!

The two others involved however kicked off their careers, Seb at Blitz and Russell works for the BBC.