knunk

I'm not exactly twiddling my thumbs but the shows prolonged start is dragging. Still crewing.

I've a couple of little design and board jobs going through. Above is our pal Dexter pressing a button. Not an unusual thing for him to do.

I've just watched the first two completed Nick shorts. Stu and his team have done an amazing job on these. They certainly look like the budget was a lot bigger than it was. I'm a little shocked to not have the usual feeling of crushing disappointment. I think they're great.

Anyway, hopefully they'll be airing soon so everyone can see them.

Well done to Orsi and Stu on the arrival of Sienna-Marrie Elizabeth Gamble. Good work folks.
Still waiting on the show......Contracts as ever hold things up. The deadline sits there, unmoving. Got some nice design work going on though, so I'm keeping busy.
Drawing is a doodle done sitting by a river in the sun with my two boys. Its was a lovely day. Passers by must find it disappointing when they look over my shoulder and see something like that. They must expect some proper art. A water colour or something.

I'm 41 today. Blimey! The pictures today all come from a mildly drunk drawing session. I've been working on a made up metal band as a back story for my friends new show. We're trying to give them a bit of depth even though they are very much BG characters. They look nothing like the images here but it's what happens mixing metal and merlot. To be honest I kind of re-discovered ELO that night too...and Boney M. Must be the strings! Hail Satan!

Heres another quick paint from last night. My phones got two camera things on it, one makes you more ugly than the other. Using the more ugly one you can look at yourself without taking a picture. This is what I was doing when I painted this face. I fiddled in PS a lot though to save my bad drawing. Very handy things phones.

I drew Mr Gravy yesterday. Just a doodle while on the phone. This afternoon I drew a crappy version in Sketchbook pro. Drew a better skull, then stuck the better skull over crappy Mr Gravy and made something better.

Hows a bloke supposed to put pictures up on his blog when he's not allowed to show anything? Start date is still impending. Voices being cast, musicians briefed.....board artists being contacted. I've been blocking stuff out for the first 2 shows. Its a nice change of pace from the shorts for Nick.
Comping is still going strong on the shorts. They are looking beautiful. I'm sure they'll create quite a buzz when they air.
The image is an un-used design for some Weetos commercials. I can see why they didn't go for it. Too much of a departure from the brief. The final designs are nice but these would have been lots of fun.
I got to draw Scooby Doo and Shaggy last week too. Great fun, but Scoobys legs are nuts.

I'm loving my Mac. Somethings are very tricky to get my head around. I'm all thumbs at the moment. Drawings are quick dibbles for a mates show.

Stu from Greykid sent over a couple of final scenes for the shorts we've been making for Nick. I have to say they are looking amazing! Stu is doing the comping himself. Skill!
Heres a couple of tiny colour keys from the titles. I cant wait for them to air.

Loooook!!
Cant believe how nice my new Mac is....and my new Wacom for that matter. Going to be tricky getting used to OSX after all these years in Windows land.
End of the month is approaching and trying to tie up freelance stuff. Looking forward to new things and hopefully making a few new friends.

Look at the size of that! The show I'm due to direct gets ever closer. I printed and taped the first draft of the schedule together this morning. Scary, yet exciting.

I actually did more than that but I binned the crap ones. Pictured aren't any of the 94 but the 30-something I did the next day. I was blasting as much as I could before my trip.
I'm working some more with my chums at Greykid so I'm not posting anything that'll get me into trouble.

Got back yesterday. Me and lovely Claire had a fantastic time. Crap being back.
While I was out there a grabbed a copy of the amazing Javier Olivares book "The Ono and Hop Chronicles". It further confirms his genius. Amazing stuff.
Also had a nosey at Sagrada Familia. Amazing place. I came away kind of wishing they'd left it alone though.

Just a quick one about someone elses work instead of mine. My good pal Paul Salmon has come back to the freelance life after years in the wilderness. This makes me very happy. I met up with him last week for a pint. He's one of the best in the game. He needs stuff online so I'll bully him to get something up. Take a look at the above image. Paul was the guy who designed Count Duckulas castle by the way.

Many thanks to Aaron at the mighty Cold Hard Flash for letting me know the re-designed site is up (click the title). Great job Aaron!
I did some designs for Aaron late last year, some of which you can see by scrolling down the CHF page. Above is the image the new logo is taken from. You can see he was changed a little from this to be more bear-like. This is straight out of Flash.

Heres a few colour keys I've been doing on a new thing for some folks to be broadcast somewhere sometime fairly soon....whenever they're done. Hopefully when it airs I can post more stuff.
I've had fun on this show. I been doing boards, animatics, some design and these little colour key things.
I went down to Wish films the other day to see Will, Ian and the other Will. I had a fine day. I got rained on three times in one day though. I hope I didn't smell too damp.

The end of another year. Lots of great things to look forward to in 2008, personally and professionally. All the best to you.

I'm back.
They let me go.
Pictured is "The red wall". Pray you never have to see it.
Bless the Greykid gang. I'm amazed by the work these guys are doing. I'm sure the new year will bring them even more success.

Check out the size of their monitors too.

Many thanks for the invite Guys!

Safe and Sound won! In fact it won 3 times! Safe and Sound was shortlisted for Education and Training, Kids, and Government and Education, and scooped them all. Giving BBC, Channel 4, MTV, The Natural History Museum and the Ministry of Defence are good kicking! Yay us! Well done the lovely Stardotstar gang. Chuffed!

I was up too late and full of wine. I really should have gone to bed but I started messing in Sketchbook and Photoshop. I think its Frankensteins monster. Not sure about the blood splatter thing..bit cheesy.

A few poses from my sketchbook. I had a day last week where I couldn't stop drawing these blokes. This is one of many sheets. This may turn out to be the funnyest cartoon ever made. Or might not.

I had a look at One of the Skunk shows I boarded the other day. Had a look at half of it anyway. Very cool it was too. Beautiful BGs and animation.
Heres a board/final comparison picture. One of my fave shots. Hmmm...

I heard yesterday that the Safe & Sound project (I did with my chum guy and the boffins at Stardotstar) has been nominated for a BIMA award....in three categories. Whats a BIMA? Have a look here http://www.bima.co.uk/.
The picture is a reject design. They didn't pick him.

Early this morning, frustrated and tired, ratbird came along.

Works mad! I've a very long night ahead. I hate working hard. I want to retire now please. Somewhere sunny, where theres wine and food. And sun.
I'm full of coffee and coke. Hopefully I'm carrying enough fuel to get me through the night. Trouble is I have to do the same again tomorrow. Anyway a couple of days and it'll all be over. Drawings were done in record breaking time...mere seconds. Just now infact. I just had to write the word "metal" above them. When I drew the word "metal" I was shouting it really loud in an Arnie voice. Caffeines Ace! Wonder if the guitarist from Slayer would want to do a job share? Mess with me at your peril clients.

Oh....and I've been working on some cool projects recently. Hopefully I can post pictures from them soon.

Hail Satan anyway...cheers

Heres something else entirely. Doodles for my little show, and some hardcore sheep action.

I went down to London again. Great meeting up with Stu and the lovely Nickelodeon people. I thought I was busy until I talked to Stu. We ate lots of meat. Nice.
The day ended in Matt and Phreds back in Manchester. Very nice.

The image sums up my feelings of the last few weeks.

Yes I'm back from London.

Apologies for not going to see anyone while I was there. I said I would but dint.
Great to see K, Sam, Will, Ian, Carl and my pal Si at the Parthenon party.
Over 13quid for 3 bottles of becks though!! Weep for them my northern brothers!

The train down was like a train from the future.... or France or something. I drew half a sketchbook of nonsense, thumbnailed 2 boards and read a few pages of Stranger in a strange land. Which at page 400 and something has taken a strange turn and lost me a bit.

Back to work today though. Emails and funny animals.

Pictures are doodles from the train.

Apologies for the lack of posts. Fun things are a foot. Working on a fun new thing with some nice folks I've not worked with before, and my own shows are starting to click. One in particular has just fallen into place. So I can get it together and get it out there.
I was out and about last week. Great seeing my chums at Stardotstar, Kilogramme and Firestep. Kilogramme and Firestep are now working together and have a joint reel. They are doing beautiful things.
Also dropped in to see my pal at studio Liddell. They are doing ace stuff on Roary the race car.