Alright chaps!
I have for the past month, been working to paint up issue 2 of Leo Fox which I am working on with a friend as part of UNFIT productions. While the work is slow I really think the quality is high, so we will be delaying any publication of the work until we both have time to see the end in sight. What with freelance commitments and day jobs, we have pushed back the release date for the first 2 comics till Spring 2010 with the third following in the Summer. But for now, here are a few illustrated pages from the new comic, enjoy!

Hello guys,
Well recently I haven't been animating at all! I've actually been doing a lot of watercolouring for a comic I and my friend have been working up for about a year now. I finally got issue one of a 3 part story arc completed and will soon be putting some pages and artwork up in its very own blog! It is currently having the lettering done and the layout cleaned up by my partner in crime Mr. Patrick Potter. For more info as and when it arrives, please check over at http://themysteriousleofox.blogspot.com !
I thank you.

Just a few quick animations I was asked to do for a job application, did these in about a day and a half each. As always, keep them comments coming!

What Ho!
Just thought I'd post this acting piece I've finally finished. It got started last year but then I got so busy I never got chance to work on it till now. The sound is a touch out of sync, but since my graphics card went kaput its hard to line anything up in Premiere. I hope to solve the problem and update this soon. Hope you like it.
Bye for now.

Hello!
I am still unemployed, which in terms of getting some animation done, is a good thing! This is an animation I did yesterday using video reference from youtube, a 540 taekwondo kick. I was looking around for a good martial arts combo and this fit the bill. I think I am also gonna do some punches and wrestling moves too, so watch this space, hopefully I'll get a few done next week! Comments as always are welcome
Bye for now!

PS I have redone this animation taking into account the comments left, so see what you think of this new version!

Hi, I'm currently out of work so I have time to animate. Heres one I did yesterday, I'm gonna try and do a few of these short pieces, let me know what you think. Thanks.

this animation has been updated taking into account the feedback I recieved, please feel free to let me know what you think!

A post of renders done for M, an events and marketing company last year.

A selection of renders from my current job.

Hello
Its a horrible day outside so I thought I'd take the time to post some more work. For the past couple of months I've been working on a comic, based on a film I made with 2 friends back in 2005. The film was a 7 minute prequel to an animated series funded by The Digital City at Teesside University called "The Adventures of Leo Fox". The series was to follow the exploits of a young boy on a magical council estate. Orphaned as a babe, Leo was brought up by his Nan until one night she falls into a mysterious illness. The film follows Leo on his mad dash through the twisted estate in search of the only one who can save his Nan, his long lost Grandad.
The film can be seen here.

Anyway, time went by and the 3 of us went off to do different things. Ben went off to study film, Pat has been freelance writing and creating audio short stories , and I've been learning how to animate properly (as many of you may know!), but in the background we've always wanted to do something with Leo Fox, his tale is not yet told!

Since we now live all over the place, making a film again isn't really an option, so what we have decided to do is try and make a comic. Its slow going at the moment, but we have finally got a first adventure mapped out and are working on issue one.
When you go into making a comic I don't think you realise just how many decisions you need to address. Style, characters, working method, and what to show have been some of the many challenges. For myself as the penciller, it has been a challenge to create the work in a format which is doable with limited space and equipment. The process I came up with was to sketch out the panels roughly and scan and photoshop them into some kind of order. I then printed these out and using a dark pencil and layout paper, traced the roughs out as clean lines. These were then rescanned and photo texture added in photoshop, before being sent on to Pat, who is taking care of lettering, as well as the writing.
Being that this is the first time we've ever made a comic, its been a real learning process and more work than I thought it would be (drawing carefully takes time!) but I am getting better and better at it. One of the main things that has taken time has been to create the array of characters which are needed when you start to break down even the simplest of stories, and also working out just how much you can say in one issue, which is roughly 18 pages. We are aiming for the first story arc to take place over 3 issues, but since this is just a hobby at the minute we're not setting hard and fast timeframes for completion. We're just seeing where it takes us.
Anyway I've rambled on long enough. I'm sure I'll be adding more on this project as time goes by, but for now, here are the first ten pages of issue one without lettering. I know they won't make much sense as a story without the words, but I'd be happy to hear your critiscisms in terms of style, pace and readability. And until next time...
Adios!

Hi There!
Here are some more images from the arctic environment. For the fog I used a large direct light with volume effect and a noise projection map. For the sea I used a blend material of foam and ocean lume, using an ambient occlusion map with a low sample rate, high spread and a blur as the mask so that objects in the sea would have foam around them, I think it really adds to the cold feel of the environment. Please feel free to comment.

Edit: The finished flythrough. The idea with this is that the camera would hold on each vehicle before flying to the next one, hence it slows down and accelerates between each them.

Here are some more stills from the Royal Navy Project I'm working on. Below are:

the Viking with boats in the background


An LCVP landing craft



A "Rigid Raider" Speedboat

HMS Bulwark being refuelled by RFA Largs Bay


I'm now working on a snowy environment and camouflage colours for the Viking. When I get chance I'll post some more cameos of these models, renders of models which I did not create, and go into more detail about the render settings I've used, and some of the techniques I've used to get the effects for the different environments. But for now, Adios!

Hey hey hey!
Been a while eh? Well I am busy and will be posting some animation just as soon as I get chance. I have a piece which is nearly there, but this week I have been getting into textures.
I'm currently doing a job which has afforded me the chance to make some realistic environments and build some militery vehicles, so I will post them as I render them. Above is a BVS 10 troop support vehicle modelled from scratch (apart from the gun which was modified) in about 2 days. The model was done in max and uses a series of nested blend materials, sub object materials, grunge maps and ambient occlusion to dirty up the surface. The environment is lit with a photometric daylight system. The project calls for lots of vehicles but due to time constraints we have had to buy some readymade, but I have had chance to make a ship too, and maybe a few more things before the job is done, but I'm happy I've had the cahnce to work on this. It makes a change from the usual shiny looking surfaces I have been doing for the past few months. The scene is rendered with Mental Ray with Final Gather but no global illumination although I have used a logarithmic exposure control to attenuate the brightness. As always let me know what you think and I'll post more renders and the final animation as soon as its completed.

Hi! I'm trying to find time to finish this animation at the moment, but in the meantime I thought I'd put it up for comment. I'm having a problem with video playback on my computer at the moment so getting the timing is quite difficult. But I'm happy with the keys and just need to finess the overshoots and add the lip synching.

As always, let me know what you think!

Hi Guys, Still no animations, but it has been a lean week at work, so inspired by looking at others' blog I decided to have a go sketching straight into photoshop. I've been reading a lot of Mighty Thor lately so I wanted to do this flying character. It was good to be able to move it round and distort it directly before going into the details. I did this with just a mouse, as my stylus is at home, so the lines are a little wobbly but I'm happy for a first attempt. Definitely going to do more of this in the future. Let me know what you think!
Laters

Hi everyone,
Lately I have been a bit busy to animate, although I have 3 pieces that are WIP at the moment and I may post them for comment soon. I have started using soundbites from www.11seconclub.com for inspiration although since I work full time, finishing a piece to actually enter seems a long way off at the minute, but anyway, it creates a good starting point, and it is also useful to see others' interpretations of the same piece. For now however, here are some models I had to make recently for work. Usually the modelling I get to do is very simple and dull, so it was fun to get to do some individual pieces for this project. Let me know what you think.
Be back soon!

Hey back again! This is a little animation I did initially as a long shot, but then I played around with the camera for the second render. I'm thinking the longshot works a lot better as the timing feels right which I guess shows how getting the camera right before animating is really important. I feel the second render needs more time,even though its the same move, so that the viewer can understand whats happening, as the emphasis is placed on so many individual elements and not on the action as a whole. This is a classic case of understanding by doing for me and really helps, because sometimes you need to question what you are told as a given rule.

Your Thoughts?

laters!

Hello y'all. Earning a living is keeping me kinda busy at the moment, but I have been doing this and that so I'm uploading some life studies, a sketch I did in town a while ago and a storyboard for a quick animation I want to do. I have actually made the character and modelled some of the set, but the rigging isn't so good so there are a few issues to iron out before I get started, though I may have a look around for a ready made rig that might suit. Anyway your comments and suggestions, as always, are welcome.

storyboard for a sorcerers apprentice style short

train sketches

hand studies

Chinatown - Chinese New Year.

laters!

Hello!!

I have been working recently for a company called M who produce trade exhibition stands for clients. A lot of the work has been re hashing old models but last week I started my first project from scratch and I thought I'd post this graphic which is of a spooky operating theatre for a new computer game, which I am quite happy with. The space is quite small so the camera FOV is wide to make up for it. The work was done in 3ds Max using mental ray and architectural materials, and the blood textures came from http://www.cgtextures.com/ which has been an amazing find for me, you can download 15 mb of jpgs a day from there, which is pretty fantastic. The scene was rendered with final gather for those impressive shadows and reflections and took6 hours to finish! Anyway let me know what you think.

laters

Here are some of my latest sketches. The first is a tattoo design for a friend based on a drawing she saw in a magazine, the second is of a friend who came round and got sketched whether he liked it or not, and the third is the train I take home from town. I sketched it then cleaned up using a blue pitt brush pen which is nice because you can vary the width of the stroke. Here I used it to define the depth in the image. I think the technique worked well and I can't wait to use it again, possibly with a more complicated subject (though having said that, the train environment has some great shapes and lines in it). Thats all for now,
Toodle Pip!