Friday 16 December 2011

Batvent (paused)

Sadly I will not be able to continue on with Batvent for this year (at least until after the 28th December) as I have returned to the UK and tomorrow leave for France to go skiing for a week, I have animated only one more Batvent piece in advance but I'll save that for now, the only reason for not getting ahead of myself is that they take a surprising amount of time, not just to animate but to design as well (I'm not used to lineless art as used here apart from my Twenty Five for 25 project in February this year).

I hope that you've enjoyed what you've seen here and if you follow me on Twitter then you'll know I'd love for you to submit your own Batvent images, animated or not, of Batman characters enjoying some time in a winter scene, if you want to send them to me I'll post them up when I'm back, (have a look on my website if you don't already know my email.)

Thanks + Merry Christmas!

Wednesday 14 December 2011

Batvent - Day 14

Riddler enjoys leaving question marks everywhere,
even the snow won't stop him doing that!

Tuesday 13 December 2011

Batvent - Day 13

Bane might be super-strong but that doesn't
mean he can't enjoy a ride on a sledge!

Monday 12 December 2011

Sunday 11 December 2011

Batvent - Day 11

Hush took to the ice but something
seems to have frightened him.

Saturday 10 December 2011

Batvent - Day 10

A snow-cat by a cat in the snow.

Friday 9 December 2011

Batvent - Day 9

 But who is he throwing them at, with such zeal?

Thursday 8 December 2011

Batvent - Day 8

Sorry it's late, this will be elaborated on and you'll get another for Day 9 but that's late too, oops!

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Batvent - Day 7

Two-Face takes to the slopes with a custom skiing outfit!

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Batvent - Day 6

Mr Freeze has come to town!

Monday 5 December 2011

Batvent - Day 5

Killer Croc stalks you from the icy waters… boo!

Sunday 4 December 2011

Batvent - Day 4

Poor Alfred, left out in the cold holding snowballs,
you'd think Batman would give him a woolly hat!

Saturday 3 December 2011

Batvent - Day 3


Something a little bit more special, a SnowPenguin!

Friday 2 December 2011

Batvent - Day 2

All will be revealed… but for now here's a little present to keep you going, don't open it yet!

Thursday 1 December 2011

Batvent Calendar - Day 1


Batman + Advent Calendar = Batvent Calendar!

PS: this is an idea I had literally yesterday and procrastinated on today (don't worry it'll be a new image each day, think of this as a teaser), but considering how much fun my 25 for Twenty Five was back in February I figure that this could be too, also having played through Arkham City I need an outlet for all this Bat-knowledge filling up my little brain!

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Still alive… just.

Gosh, I've been gone so long Blogger's all gone and changed itself, well, welcome new followers - don't worry even without posting I've noticed I'd magically acquired a few extra ones this past month or two. The reason for the absence is a happy one; work!

I've been doing a short animation as well as several design projects that have come out really well with everyone involved being pleased with it all, alas until I get the go ahead I can't show anything from any of it and since they've all taken so much time (16 hour work days are normal, right?) I've not had a lot of time for my own stuff but hopefully that will all change in the coming weeks, I even have a couple of ideas for some personal pieces in my head!

I'll leave you with this video that came out recently as part of Sony's new advertising campaign, trying to get over the whole hacking debacle and I can honestly say I got shivers from watching this, it's a great love letter to the great back catalogue that the PS3 has, how many characters can you spot??



Tuesday 2 August 2011

5 Graphic Novels

Since I've been living in Canada I have taken full advantage of the well-stocked graphic novel section in Waterloo Public Library, today I got out five that I have never read before...
Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman
- I had been meaning to read this one for a while because I'd heard so much about it's depiction of a Holocaust survivor but with mice and cats standing in for humans, it is also the only comic-book to have won a Pulitzer Prize.

Fray by Joss Whedon
- I've been reading Season 8 of Buffy (which directly follows on from the end of the tv series) and while I wait for Volume 5 to come in I thought I'd check out this as I'm a huge Whedon fan and Fray (a Slayer in the distant future) had appeared in Volume 4 due to some time-travel shenanigans involving Buffy.

Tank Girl: Visions of Booga by Alan C. Martin
- I also recently started going through the Tank Girl series (created by Jamie Hewlett of Gorillaz fame) and having finished off three volumes of the collected TG comics I saw this one on a different shelf (since Hewlett wasn't involved) and liked the look of the artwork by the bizarrely named Rufus Dayglo.

The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way
- Yes, that is the Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance (a band I am not overly familiar with) but I had heard good things about this graphic novel (it won the 2008 Eisner Award for Best Limited Series) so thought it was worth a shot.

100% by Paul Pope
- The other day I finished off a Batman: Black & White collection and one of the artists had stuck out to me, with a rather manga-esque look to his depiction of Batman, so straight away I had to look up to see what else he had done and reserved two more graphic novels that he'd worked on (100% being ready for collection today). Incidentally, Paul Pope has won the Eisner Award three times throughout his career and the manga look to his work is in part down to working for Japan's leading manga publisher for 5 years.

Finally: Today over dinner I read When The Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs which was rather brilliant and another one that I had heard about for quite a while now but not got round to checking out, it's a sad but sweet tale of an elderly couple preparing for a war that's just about to start, reminiscing about how it was during the other World Wars and dealing with which instructions to follow to build a bomb shelter, the Local Council's or the Governments?!

What are you reading at the moment?
Any more suggestions on what I should get next?

Monday 18 July 2011

Woolly Allen


The other day while talking about "Midnight in Paris" someone stumbled on their words and said Woolly Allen, and thus the image of a neurotic sheep with thick-rimmed glasses was born. It was too fun an image to pass up and also acted as a good practice of my rather unused lip-sync skills, I have a few more vocal clips that could lead to a few more Woolly shorts.

Original voice from "Love and Death" at dailywav.com

Walk Cycles

Here are some of the many walk-cycles I've created for my adaptation of Tom Gauld's A Noisy Alphabet, a personal project that has been in the works for quite a while now, might start showing some more of it in the near future.

Friday 15 July 2011

Chaffy: FOUND

Find Chaffy is a creation of Jamie Smart and to celebrate the release of his second Chaffy book he threw a Chaffy art contest, which I decided in my infinite wisdom to enter the night before by animating a bunch of the little fluffy critters.

This morning after some well needed sleep I awoke to find that I had won the contest!
You can view all of them at the Find Chaffy site now!

PS: Last night, Edgar Wright for a moment suspected I was his father on Twitter. I am not.

Sunday 3 July 2011

Linkage Time!


This week has seen my graduation film, Phobias (2008), featured on not one but two sites leading to a little boost in it's views on Vimeo, it's always nice to get some recognition so thanks to everyone who has watched it recently, especially as it's been around for a few years now.

-----

Nathan Bulmer (aka Eat More Bikes) makes great comics practically everyday, based off of random records, wikipedia articles or whatever else takes his fancy and I thought that he deserved some recognition too, now I just need to convince him to teach me this technique and I might stand a chance of updating a little more often!

GO CHECK HIM OUT!!!

Tuesday 28 June 2011

Saturday 16 April 2011

T.V.Z : Katana

That ladder's a bit of a safety hazard.
(Click to view larger)

T.V.Z : Nail-bat

The early undead catches the bat.
(Click to view larger)

T.V.Z : Paddle/chainsaw.

Trying to keep the peace.
(Click to view larger)

Toby vs The Zombies


These are two little sticker-like images I made and taped to an envelope when I tried to send Mr Toby Jackman something a while ago (it didn't make it however, I blame French postmen, but that's another story) - the reason for the zombie was that I was posting a Resident Evil game to him and the chainsaw/paddle weapon he's carrying is an iconic mash-up from the cover of a different zombie game, Dead Rising 2.

Comenius

These are the little guys that I designed for the Comenius project's visit to the UK recently, the project is a group of seven different schools from across Europe and every now and then six of the countries descend on the seventh with a few teachers and pupils from each to visit their partner schools and experience another culture.

I was asked to do a fun illustration that could be printed on some draw string bags as a free gift to all those involved, they already have a logo that features all seven flags in colour with a handshake in front of it, I still used the flag idea but this way it simply shows that they're not that different, all together, all smiling!

I was pleased with how they came out especially consider the timescale (the design was only done and sent to the printers a few days before they all arrived!) and it's fun once more to see my work on a product.

Thursday 14 April 2011

Luchabubbles


These gentlemen were originally drawn (with a fineliner pen) on individually hand-made cards in 2007 but never sold (I even made little brown paper envelopes for them!), some of them had the speech bubble part cut out so you could see inside the card a bit and write something in the gap.
There are a few more, including about half a dozen listening to music on headphones connected to various devices (which aren't iPods).

I scanned these in and coloured them in digitally then arranged them so that they're good as a widescreen HD wallpaper (which you can get by clicking here).

ps: apologies for the lack of posts in March, I've been busy getting ready to move to Canada on May 2nd and seeing people (in Norwich and France so far) before I leave!

Sunday 20 February 2011

25. Me


The final in my series of Twenty-Five to 25 and I went with myself for the last hat, I've enjoyed making all of these images and have had a good amount of support on both Facebook and DeviantArt which has been lovely, I hope to use them in some future project but for now I'm glad I did it all pretty much on time.

*Thanks to Toby Jackman for a couple of suggestions that kept me with a supply of hat wearing heroes*

(I'm also pleased I didn't have to resort to superheroes wearing masks which aren't technically
hats at all and even managed to fit in a few female heroes toward the end after it was pointed out that things were a bit testosterone heavy up to that point!)

Thursday 17 February 2011

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Monday 14 February 2011

Sunday 13 February 2011

Saturday 12 February 2011

Friday 11 February 2011

Thursday 10 February 2011

Wednesday 9 February 2011

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Monday 7 February 2011

13. Thor

In the 7th century, a Bishop Eligius scolded Christians for observing Thursday as the holy day of Thor; yet even 500 years later, Thor’s hammers were still revered in temples as sacred relics and sources of thunder.

Sunday 6 February 2011

12. Marty McFly

6 Back To The Future console games have been produced, the latest being an episodic series developed by Telltale Games featuring the likenesses of Marty McFly and Doc Brown as well as Christopher Lloyd's voice, Michael J. Fox could not participate but newcomer AJ LoCascio's amazing impression landed him the part.

Saturday 5 February 2011

11. Captain Jack Sparrow

5 Oscar nominations were received for the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, (Actor in a Leading Role, Makeup, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects) however it won none of them, to date the Pirates series has only won Best Visual Effects for Dead Man's Chest (the second film in the series).

Friday 4 February 2011

10. Dr Alan Grant


4 years after Jurassic Park (1993) became the most successful film of all time (grossing over $914 million worldwide) it was surpassed by James Cameron's Titanic (1997)

Thursday 3 February 2011

9. Indiana Jones


The 3rd film in the Indiana Jones series (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) introduced viewers to Indy's father, Henry Jones Sr, played by Sean Connery who in reality is only 12 years older than Harrison Ford.

Wednesday 2 February 2011

8. Dumbledore

The 2nd actor to play Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was Michael Gambon after Richard Harris passed away, having played the headmaster of Hogwarts for the first and second Harry Potter films.

Tuesday 1 February 2011

7. Max


The 1st complete performance of the operatic adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are was given by the Glyndebourne Touring Opera in London in 1984.

Monday 31 January 2011

6. Scott Pilgrim


31 is the current age of Bryan Lee O'Malley, creator of the Scott Pilgrim series, incidentally his birthday is two days after mine (albeit a different year obviously).

Sunday 30 January 2011

5. Finn


30 years old - the age that Pendleton Ward (creator of Adventure Time) will turn in 2012.

Saturday 29 January 2011

4. Hellboy


29 January 1845 – "The Raven" is published in the New York Evening Mirror, the first publication with the name of the author, Edgar Allan Poe.

(Apologies: I looked for a very long time to find a fact that I could link with the number 29 and Hellboy but to no avail, and trust me when I say I hunted for some pretty tenuous links towards the end, so this Poe fact will have to do this time.)

Friday 28 January 2011

3. Jayne Cobb


28 minutes - the length of the "Here's How It Was: The Making of Firefly" featurette on the Firefly: The Complete Series boxset.

Thursday 27 January 2011

2. Woody


27 animators worked on the first Toy Story, using 400 computer models to animate the characters. Woody was the most complex as he required 723 motion controls, including 212 for his face and 58 for his mouth.

Wednesday 26 January 2011

1. The Doctor


26 January 1984: broadcast of first episode of Frontios. The TARDIS materialises at the end of time, where Norma has a very 1984 haircut and the ground swallows people and things up - including the TARDIS.