christopher james wright

Wild Lomography

2012-01-27T13:51:00.001-05:00

Like Lomography? Like animals?

You'll love their new range of animal print cameras

and my animation to tie in with them all!

This was projected all night at the Lomography Toronto Store

on January 26th as part of their launch party for the new range of cameras.

Toast

2012-01-14T09:37:00.003-05:00

Toast is this guy, and yes he's not wearing any pants.

If you want to find out more about him and a multitude of his other strange office co-workers then check out Jamie Smart's fantastic Corporate Skull comic at http://www.corporateskull.com/ - but be warned it's not one for kids, (this particular image was from Issue 4-5).

Made because… who doesn't want to give animating 'willy-wobble' a go?

Batvent - Day 15

2012-01-09T12:57:00.002-05:00

Here's a gift for you all since you've been so patient while I sauntered off and went skiing.

I also moved to Toronto at the start of the month and have started to finish off the remaining days of Batvent, I've got a few ideas for what to do with them all once I'm finished, maybe this year I'll come up with an advent idea before December!

Batvent (paused)

2011-12-16T20:27:00.000-05:00

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!

Batvent - Day 14

2011-12-14T10:38:00.001-05:00

Riddler enjoys leaving question marks everywhere,

even the snow won't stop him doing that!

Batvent - Day 13

2011-12-13T14:53:00.003-05:00

Bane might be super-strong but that doesn't

mean he can't enjoy a ride on a sledge!

Batvent - Day 12

2011-12-12T13:09:00.001-05:00

Gotham City.

Batvent - Day 11

2011-12-11T23:40:00.001-05:00

Hush took to the ice but something

seems to have frightened him.

Batvent - Day 10

2011-12-10T12:40:00.000-05:00

A snow-cat by a cat in the snow.

Batvent - Day 9

2011-12-09T12:58:00.000-05:00

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

Batvent - Day 8

2011-12-08T19:10:00.000-05:00

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

Batvent - Day 7

2011-12-07T17:29:00.001-05:00

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

Batvent - Day 6

2011-12-06T12:53:00.001-05:00

Mr Freeze has come to town!

Batvent - Day 5

2011-12-05T14:01:00.000-05:00

Killer Croc stalks you from the icy waters… boo!

Batvent - Day 4

2011-12-04T13:50:00.001-05:00

Poor Alfred, left out in the cold holding snowballs,

you'd think Batman would give him a woolly hat!

Batvent - Day 3

2011-12-03T14:27:00.001-05:00

Something a little bit more special, a SnowPenguin!

Batvent - Day 2

2011-12-02T17:13:00.001-05:00

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

Batvent Calendar - Day 1

2011-12-01T23:32:00.001-05:00

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!

Still alive… just.

2011-10-05T20:42:00.002-04:00

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??

5 Graphic Novels

2011-08-02T21:33:00.009-04:00

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?

Woolly Allen

2011-07-18T15:45:00.004-04:00

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

2011-07-18T15:21:00.007-04:00

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.

Chaffy: FOUND

2011-07-15T12:31:00.007-04:00

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.

Linkage Time!

2011-07-03T23:24:00.005-04:00

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!!!

Status Update (2 months late)

2011-06-28T14:16:00.000-04:00

I'm in Canada now, thanks.

T.V.Z : Katana

2011-04-16T13:57:00.002-04:00

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

T.V.Z : Nail-bat

2011-04-16T13:55:00.004-04:00

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

T.V.Z : Paddle/chainsaw.

2011-04-16T13:43:00.004-04:00

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

Toby vs The Zombies

2011-04-16T13:26:00.004-04:00

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

2011-04-16T13:16:00.004-04:00

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.

Luchabubbles

2011-04-14T08:11:00.004-04:00

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!

25. Me

2011-02-20T17:08:00.002-05:00

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!)

24. Sue Storm/Invisible Woman

2011-02-18T18:45:00.000-05:00

23. Lara Croft

2011-02-17T17:42:00.001-05:00

22. Jill Valentine

2011-02-16T17:13:00.000-05:00

21. Wonder Woman

2011-02-15T18:26:00.000-05:00

20. King Leonidas

2011-02-14T18:49:00.000-05:00

19. Henry Jones

2011-02-13T12:48:00.000-05:00

18. Robin Hood

2011-02-12T18:04:00.001-05:00

17. Sherlock Holmes

2011-02-11T15:22:00.000-05:00

16. Captain America

2011-02-10T10:15:00.000-05:00

15. Zorro

2011-02-09T15:00:00.000-05:00

14. Mad Hatter

2011-02-08T17:09:00.000-05:00

13. Thor

2011-02-07T18:20:00.002-05:00

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.

12. Marty McFly

2011-02-06T17:51:00.003-05:00

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.

11. Captain Jack Sparrow

2011-02-05T17:31:00.003-05:00

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).

10. Dr Alan Grant

2011-02-04T18:14:00.002-05:00

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)

9. Indiana Jones

2011-02-03T10:07:00.002-05:00

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.

8. Dumbledore

2011-02-02T10:04:00.002-05:00

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.

7. Max

2011-02-01T18:06:00.003-05:00

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.

6. Scott Pilgrim

2011-01-31T18:02:00.003-05:00

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).

5. Finn

2011-01-30T17:36:00.002-05:00

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

4. Hellboy

2011-01-29T17:05:00.004-05:00

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.)

3. Jayne Cobb

2011-01-28T17:49:00.004-05:00

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

2. Woody

2011-01-27T17:27:00.001-05:00

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.

1. The Doctor

2011-01-26T10:43:00.008-05:00

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.

Twenty-Five

2011-01-26T10:34:00.003-05:00

On February 19th I will turn 25 and so a week ago I thought that I should do something in the twenty five days leading up to and including my birthday this year. I considered making a comic but that would have required a bit more planning and since I'd forgotten until this morning about the initial idea I figured it will be easier to do something simpler, so envisaged a Partridge in a Pear Tree deal (1 thing one day, increasing amount up to 25) but then in the shower I came up with… Twenty Five Heroes with Hats!

I've got ten listed in my sketchbook so far and plan on doing something special with them all once I'm finished, and if I don't find twenty five we'll broaden the spectrum to include masks which opens it up to a vast array of superheroes.

A Resolution of Films

2011-01-03T07:04:00.002-05:00

I'm not normally one to make resolutions, even less so to write them down for people to bring up again in the future, but this year I turn 25 and thought that I should have some sort of goals to aim towards.

I would class myself as a film geek, perhaps even a nerd or sorts, however there are gaping holes in my film watching life which are not good at all, causing shame and open-mouthed shock at the lack of classic/older films I'm missing out on.

Fortunately I can cross off the original Star Wars trilogy straight away, something which until a couple of years ago I'd never seen altogether, apparently it has something of a cult following...

Anyway, to get the ball rolling, this is just a few of the films/directors of whom I wish to become better acquainted with in 2011:

2001: A Space Odyssey
Reservoir Dogs
Trainspotting
The Evil Dead

Alfred Hitchcock
Hayao Miyazaki

I'll update with my progress and add to the list should I see more that I have to include and I'm open to suggestions, old classics, forgotten animations, modern wonders - and I'll tell you if I've seen them or not.

Looking back on 2010's films one of the best experiences for me was Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, in addition to great performances, music and humour it started things off with a fantastic opening sequence dissected at the link by director Edgar Wright along with other graphic elements and animation used throughout the film.

Honourable mentions go to Inception and Toy Story 3, I don't think any explanation's needed there.

PROs and CONs of 2010

2010-12-31T08:23:00.004-05:00

CON: Unemployed for personal best of 8 months.

PRO: Learned Dreamweaver + redesigned my website (leading to working on two other sites).

PRO/CON: Turned 24.

PRO: Returned to Norwich for the first time since graduating in 2008.

PRO: Reconnected with old friends from NSAD and my Foundation Degree.

PRO: Met new people and became a barista for 2 weeks with The Princes Trust and Costa.
CON: Didn't get kept on by Costa but (PRO) they did really like me and offered me a position later in the year (by which point I had another job).

PRO: Got a job at Sunnyside Rural Trust.
CON: Minimum wage and only 25hrs a week.

PRO: Found out I was part of an Art Foundation course's homework study, in Chelmsford.

PRO: My Sunnyside chicken designs were printed on t-shirts.
CON: They looked rubbish.

PRO: Coloured for a visually stunning music-video, an MA film and made new studio contacts.
CON: Still putting the free into freelance.

PRO: Created an animated presentation and earned a proper wage for it.

PRO: Met Tom Gauld, showed him my animated version of his comic and got approval to keep working on it, now working with James on foley and finishing off the last bits of animation.

PRO: Went to an interesting talk by Professor Brian Cox about his Wonders of the Solar System series.

PRO: Saw Flight Of The Conchords live at Wembley Arena!

Sunnyside Xmas Cards

2010-12-30T08:31:00.002-05:00

Just before Christmas I designed a couple of animated banners for the Sunnyside Rural Trust site and used parts of them to come up with these two card designs, which were then sent out with the 2011 Calendar (+ Annual Report) that I also created in time for the holidays, pictures of the calendar soon!

Have an Ood Xmas!

2010-12-20T12:25:00.000-05:00

Christmas Chickens

2010-12-11T09:46:00.002-05:00

Sunnyside Rural Trust's Christmas themed banners for their website featuring the chickens having fun in the snow.

The calendar/annual report that I designed for them is going to print as the proof looks great, I've got to wait until next week to see it myself as I've been off this week.

Once Upon A Time In The Pixel West

2010-11-20T14:58:00.002-05:00

Red Dead Redemption + Once Upon A Pixel = Cute, murdering, cowboy, man.

Toasting Chickens

2010-11-04T18:18:00.002-04:00

Short looping animation used on the Sunnyside Rural Trust website as a header gif from the start of November.

Beware the Chickens!

2010-10-29T11:47:00.003-04:00

Animation made for Sunnyside Rural Trust (in Flash).
[View in fullscreen for all the little details!]

Ood Party

2010-10-12T11:51:00.001-04:00

The [dancing-moustache-wearing-tophatted] Ood (from Doctor Who).
Illustrated in Flash.

Let Go - Japanese Popstars

2010-10-01T07:26:00.003-04:00

This is the latest music video for Japanese Popstars, directed by David Wilson, featuring some mind-boggling animation which I was lucky enough to help colour in parts of last week for David and the rest of the team working on it at Colonel Blimp, thanks to Toby Jackman (who did some of the animation along with several others, including Elena Pomares) for putting my name forward to the producer, always nice to be involved in something different.

The Jam Process

2010-09-24T10:10:00.003-04:00

Here's a part of the 5m30 video that I finished a few weeks ago and was screened at the 20th anniversary party of Sunnyside Rural Trust, it was the first part of the film I completed and it let me play with text masks as well as being a good reminder of how AfterEffects works!
More will be coming soon, just forgot about that pesky title-safe area for burning the film to DVD!

They're here...

2010-09-04T14:14:00.006-04:00

The chickens have landed!

After a bit of a wait, some delays and mix-ups, the t-shirts I had previously shown have been printed!
There are two designs; Tree (wrap around image, black on white) and Grid (four colour image), which will be on sale soon, only 75 were printed in this first run and we'll see how they sell before reprinting.

Tree (on Medium)

Grid (on Large Youth)
[click t-shirts to view larger images]

Gentlemen Broncos

2010-09-02T15:41:00.004-04:00

Recently I saw 'Gentlemen Broncos' - a strange film from the director of Napoleon Dynamite, I have to say that it wasn't all that great which was a shame as it had some decent parts, but they just didn't seem to really come together to make a great piece.
An awkward home-schooled boy goes to a writing workshop where his hero (a writer of absurd science fiction struggling to come up with his next bestseller, played with a bizarre drawling accent by Jermaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords fame) is giving a talk and announces a competition for the best new sci-fi novel to which the boy enters his latest work only to be ripped off and taken advantage of by some odd, local filmmakers.

There were some extra shorts created as part of a viral marketing campaign, with Jermaine Clement giving talks in character as the aforementioned famous writer, but the best thing that I saw, many months before the film is this animation with a great style, both in the colouring and the use of hand-drawn characters with digital/photographic backgrounds and wonderful voiceover too.

Some of the best bits of the film were not part of the main story, but live-action sequences from the boy's book as he imagines it would be as a film. In these the main character of the book is played by Sam Rockwell, an actor used to sci-fi; already having starred in Moon (very realistic and serious) and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (as Zaphod Beeblebrox, being much more ridiculous) using a total deadpan expression despite the ludicrous nature of the boy's story (involving the pictured rocket-launcher deer and cyclops guards).

Dylan

2010-08-22T10:03:00.001-04:00

A little something for my cousin's son, based on an idea I'd had for my graduation film, animated in Flash in a evening.

Type of Jam

2010-08-07T05:49:00.005-04:00

I have recently been working on a short film for Sunnyside Rural Trust, and have finished off a bit about their jam making process. Mostly using live-action footage, with simple hand-held panning shots of the allotments, I included text interacting with the environment with several key-framed masks (using Wes Anderson's font of choice; Futura). Once it's all done for the 20th Anniversary Celebrations in September it will most likely go up on their website and I shall link it from here too.

2010-08-01T18:16:00.001-04:00

^ Click ^

Breakfast from the Past.

2010-07-11T13:47:00.003-04:00

Cornflake Bowl, 2005

(Taken as part of a first year photography "Product Shot" project that I was totally unprepared for; no ideas/concepts, no materials/props and being the last in the alphabet I was alone unlike everyone else working in pairs. After a quick sketch session I got approval for the cornflake bowl idea, rushed to the shops and hunted for a bowl, spoon, cornflakes and table cloth material - specifically a blue and white checkered pattern. I recall a vast amount of the rest of that day was spent with the brand new bowl, plenty of spray glue and a lot of cornflakes being stuck to my fingers. Then we set up the shot, which was simple enough, except for getting the stripes of the cloth lined up. Despite the lack of planning and being a tad rushed in the morning I really enjoyed this project and am always rather proud of how the shot turned out, and the cornflake bowl was a delightfully surreal prop in itself.)

Hypothetical Clothing

2010-06-29T17:32:00.005-04:00

Sunnyside Rural Trust are celebrating their 20th anniversary, and so with that to come in September we thought that simply selling vegetables, eggs and apple juice we should create something that would be available all year round.

Everyone had liked my sketches of the different sites and the illustrated vegetables too, so now that we've sourced some blank t-shirts and screen-printing facilities I got the task of coming up with some designs. Using a handy t-shirt template pack I found online, I created a couple of different potential shirt designs, including a 20th Anniversary logo on the back of the neck, since a huge logo isn't that appealing personally. We'll also be looking into making tote bags with similar designs, particularly using the vegetables, maybe colouring a few of them in too, but for now we're focusing on the shirts.

At the Northchurch site we have about 200 chickens who live in the orchard where we source our apples for the juice we sell, not to mention their eggs, and occasionally they like to roost in the branches which led me to this idea…

In addition to this I'm working on an LED lighting website, a short film about the history of the charity (including some animation) and utilising my illustrations in several different projects.

Studio 4ºC

2010-06-19T17:45:00.011-04:00

I've been meaning to write something about the wonderful animation company in Japan called Studio 4ºC ever since I saw Tekkonkinkreet last month. They are responsible for many animated shorts that I have enjoyed greatly over the past few years.

When the Matrix sequels came out an accompanying series of animations set in the universe of the films, imaginatively titled The Animatrix, was released on DVD. Several different studios with varying styles created and told stories that ranged from being tied to the plot of the films, to the history of the Matrix, or even just showing what happens when there's a bit of glitch.
In Beyond, one of Studio 4ºC's segments, a woman loses her cat in a crowded shanty town and stumbles across some kids playing in what they deem to be a haunted house, but is in fact a glitchy area of the Matrix. Gravity isn't obeying the laws of physics, time slows down and even more obscure things happen within the grounds of this house, it's a fun piece with a thin storyline but has very beautiful and textured visuals.

Another sequel and another tie-in animated DVD, this time around it was The Dark Knight in the cinemas and Gotham Knight at home, a collection of tales set in the Batman universe though not strictly in that of Christian Bale/Christopher Nolan's reinterpretation.
Here Studio 4ºC contributed two tales; the first "Have I Got A Story For You" being my favourite, possibly of the whole set, and shows some kids telling each other stories of their encounters with Batman and what they reckon him to be; a smoke creature, a robot or even a really large bat!

They have since also worked on a similar DVD release based on the Xbox's Halo series of games, however I have not played these a great deal and haven't been too interested in their story.

Tekkonkinkreet was a feature film based on a manga called Black and White, and follows two kids in a sprawling Japanese city who try to act as guardians when gangsters and strange ninja creatures come to town. I had been meaning to watch it for quite a while after hearing about it some time last year and then I'd spotted it and recognised the title after the local library held a Japan/Manga promotion with the usual Studio Ghibli fare. The backgrounds are unbelievable and show a staggering amount of detail, in contrast to the simple and fairly flat colours of the characters that help them to pop out of the scene, especially when they are moving about at speed performing swift parkour moves through the city.

This year it was announced that the studio has been tasked with bringing back the cult-loved Thundercats series for 2011, for now though I shall leave you with my attempt from the end of last month of emulating Studio 4ºC's style with a depiction of the Eleventh Doctor... hmm, a Doctor Who animation DVD, now that could work.

North by Northchurch

2010-06-17T11:55:00.002-04:00

Northchurch Site, Berkhamsted

(Black Fineliner)

Sketch From Above

2010-06-14T08:16:00.003-04:00

Sunnyside Activity Centre, Berkhamsted
(Black Fineliner)

About time...

2010-06-09T15:29:00.006-04:00

Well, it had to happen eventually, bound to if you think about it long enough really... I have a job again.
Despite my best job-hunting efforts, all it took in the end was the secret list in the job centre's vaults of positions that were local and suitable. So for the foreseeable (read: 6 months) future I shall be working as a graphic/web designer, it's like a less Heat-worthy model/actress career.

And who was this company that willingly took me on board, well that would be Sunnyside Rural Trust, a mid-sized charity based in Berkhamsted (home of the UK's busiest Costa Coffee) who help adults with learning disabilities get out and about, working on the allotments and several acres of land they own as well as selling fresh produce in their shop and summer market stall.

At the moment I'm working on a website that is a side project/collaboration of the charity as well as trying to promote their eight-trained up PAT-testers by designing an interesting postcard (above) full of information on the back, not to mention a couple of hand-drawn plans depicting the two sites; to improve upon the simple coloured squares of Word it is currently made from.

So that's great that I get to work on several mini projects all as part of my job, and for the time being I'll mostly be working from home but they will be getting me my own laptop for when I come in to the office and as I'm doing just 25 hours a week I can still work on my own things as well as being available for other projects if needed.

Now in Monochrome!

2010-05-18T18:45:00.001-04:00

Lucca, Italy

2010-05-18T13:44:00.004-04:00

Rooftops.

Three-wheeler, tree and alleyway.

(Quick sketches using black fineliner).

Vampires from Lucca.

2010-05-18T08:24:00.001-04:00

Brown Paper + Fineliner.
Illustrated in Lucca, Italy.

Cracked 11th

2010-05-11T19:37:00.003-04:00

Eleventh Doctor.
Illustrated in Flash.

Inspired by Jesus 2000

Personal Logo

2010-05-09T18:21:00.007-04:00

Having had my new website up for a while now I figured my blog needed a new header and so I'm going to try and put up a different variation on my name or the blog title (livingsketchbook) each week, or more frequently if I find myself with more ideas and I'll add them all into this post for preservation.

1. Jurassic Chris

2. Alien Chris
3. Doctor Chris
4. AT-AT Chris5. Chicken Chris

Island Folk II

2010-05-02T13:37:00.001-04:00

Flesh and Stone

2010-05-01T18:14:00.003-04:00

Initially my plan was to draw Amy alone in the forest from tonight's episode 'Flesh And Stone' but I ended up sketching out several little ideas that came to me as I went along, scanned the page in and coloured it digitally for your viewing pleasure.

CV: The New & Improved Edition

2010-04-22T15:14:00.002-04:00

Yes, despite not actually having too much to add to it I have updated and redesigned my CV to now include a personal statement, clearer and more direct information as well as my newly gained qualification in Food Hygiene.

Find the CV and download it HERE!

Next week I start at either a Costa or Starbucks in the Milton Keynes area for a fortnight of work placement, having been taking part in the Prince's Trust's 'Get into coffee' course.

I am the Doctor.

2010-04-21T17:39:00.003-04:00

(Doctor Who/Audio is Copyright BBC; taken from Victory of the Daleks)

Eleventh Doctors

2010-04-19T18:17:00.004-04:00

Sketching using Flash,

now I just need to learn Illustrator
to become a Master of the Creative Suite!

Portraits and Packs

2010-04-16T18:43:00.003-04:00

Memories.

Contents.

Island Folk

2010-04-11T16:02:00.009-04:00

A short prequel - "Tale of the Space Snake".

The Further Adventures of Island Folk - CLICK

The Benefits

2010-04-09T18:32:00.006-04:00

...of being an out-of-work animator I can borrow CDs from the local library for 50p each, and so recently I got David Bowie/Changesbowie, The White Stripes/Elephant and Vampire Weekend's self-titled debut album, which led to me trying to do something but quite frankly I don't know what I was going for really.

Thanks to reelroulette.net my showreel has now been viewed nearly 300 times in just two months, this is possibly slightly skewed data though as each time someone visits my reelroulette page it autoplays the reel and counts as a view, nonetheless, I'm sure many more people have seen it than would have without such a site.

Last week I helped Jane out with a site for the tile shop she works for in High Wycombe, putting it together in Dreamweaver using the pieces that she'd designed prior to me getting involved, you can see it HERE.

I finally got round to reading both volumes of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (having noticed the library only stocked the second, who wants to start half way through a story!!?).
I also had the library buy in the first of the Scott Pilgrim books which was a very amusing read and now I want to get the rest of them - if you've not heard of it it's about a boy who has to defeat his new girlfriend's 7 evil exes in order to date her.

Edgar "Shaun of the Dead" Wright is directing a film adaptation of it with Michael "Juno" Cera playing Pilgrim, click here for epic epicness.

Uncharted

2010-03-17T18:59:00.009-04:00

Uncharted 1 & 2 are action-adventure, third-person games exclusively on the Playstation 3 similar to the Tomb Raider series and the Indiana Jones films.

They follow Nathan Drake (right) as he explores the globe in search of long forgotten artifacts hidden in ancient temples and cavernous tombs. They both use real historical figures with twists of true events to create exciting stories, the first focuses on Francis Drake's discovery of El Dorado with the second being about Marco Polo's mysterious lost fleet of ships.

In the extras there are behind the scenes videos that show how they used extensive motion-capture with the actual voice actors for the cut-scenes making both games very cinematic, Nolan North brings tremendous character to Nathan Drake with a rakish charm similar to Indiana Jones or Captain Mal (from Firefly).

I recommend that you try and play them both, not just for the gameplay but the story too and the multiplayer makes for great fun for playing online.

We have rebuilt him...

2010-03-13T17:36:00.004-05:00

… www.christopherjameswright.co.uk is now stronger, faster and more powerful than you could possibly have imagined, visit it and discover work that is up to date and never before seen illustrations, enjoy!

Alphalettering

2010-03-09T17:05:00.003-05:00

Created in Flash.

Unusually Long Gestating.

2010-03-05T17:55:00.005-05:00

Here's a short piece that came from something I originally drew in my sketchbook in 2008, animated some time in 2009 using Flash and created the soundtrack with Logic in 2010.
Normally it doesn't take me this long to create such a short animation, I'm quite pleased I managed to remember enough of Logic too to make the soundtrack!

I've been working hard on my redesigned (easy to update!) website, and hope to get it online in the next week to replace my old Flash one from 2008, I also recently have found several more animation and design studios in London that I can apply to soon.

5 Second Projects + Showreel Critiques

2010-03-02T16:05:00.007-05:00

GreyscaleGorilla is a site that I stumbled onto in my regular internet wandering and thought that it might be a good one to share with the rest of you. It's a site run by Nick Campbell, who works as a motion graphic designer - amongst other things - and has done so for six years, he posts about various techniques and has recorded many videos all viewable on his Vimeo page.
The two things that I found most interesting on his site were the firstly, Demo Reel Critiques and secondly the 5 Second Projects.

The Critiques are where he takes four or five submitted showreels per episode and watches them through, either on his own or aided by another industry professional. They take about ten minutes for each showreel, going through everything from the music used to the pieces chosen, and really explain why certain parts should be cut or even time altered so as to avoid the reel dragging. I recommend watching Episode 4 and Episode 5 as they are the ones where he isn't solely going through them and you get a bit better feedback as there's two of them to bounce comments off each other.

The 5SPs are great and so far he's done sixteen, each one gives you a new topic and a deadline for you to submit a new animation, there are now 'Official Rules' as some of the earlier attempts hadn't been too stringent on content it seems, this is what you have to obey in order to be eligible;

1. Submissions must be five seconds long!
2. Only animation is accepted. Video only submissions will not.
3. The animations has to do with the theme in some way.
4. Original Work only. Don’t cut out 5 seconds of already made work.
5. Link back to GreyScaleGorilla on your Vimeo Post

It's a great way of producing content for your showreel that isn't infringing on other people's copyright, only making five seconds means it doesn't have to take up heaps of your time if you don't want it to and by getting given a theme to work with you have a springboard for ideas, here's a list of the project themes from past months;
I'm Drunk/Something Good, Something Bad/Kick The Bucket/Old Video Games/Summer in Space/Upside-Down/Modern Monkey/Good Night/Circles and Spheres/Fast Food/Spooky Scary/Start with a Photo/Home Sweet Home/Milk and Cookies/Fail

The most recent was Self Portrait but the deadline was Feb 28th, so keep an on the site for the winners of that one and the next theme to be announced soon, and when there is something new then;
1. Create a five second animation based on the theme.
2. Upload your video to Vimeo. Don’t forget to add a link back to the theme's blog post.
3. Post a link to comment thread and he will add it to the Channel.

In the meantime, if any of this interests you then have a practice creating something short using the old themes, remember it's only 60 frames at 12fps or 125 frames at 25fps, simple!

Good luck and be creative!

Moving House

2010-02-18T18:02:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow I'm going to turn 24.

Playing House.

2010-02-11T15:57:00.007-05:00

This week I have been animating this little house
Maybe some time I'll show you what it moves like
Now I am going to keep working on it a bit more.

Creatures.

2010-02-04T12:53:00.007-05:00

I've kinda ran out of sketchbooks at the moment, but in moving my desk around I discovered a couple of narrow rolls of thick paper which are great for laying across my desk and drawing on with my pen. After a couple of false starts I went back to an idea I'd tried out in my moleskine, these jagged-edged creatures were what resulted, with little symbols/badges for their possible habitats. Having scanned the lot in (and stitched them back together, below) I thought that with the new year I should learn some new skills and so the two images above show my initial attempts at digital colouring using a pen tablet, some paper textures and Photoshop.

In unrelated links: Mumford and Sons are my current band stuck on repeat.