Brand New Showreel!

I'm very proud to present my brand new 2D animation showreel!

Music: Some Kinda Shuffle by Don Nelson

 Shot Breakdown

Skulls Galore!

Skulls from Christopher Wright on Vimeo.

Here's a little something that I might end up using on a new version of my website as buttons (if I can learn how to do that) just imagine hovering the mouse over a skull and it animating in the way you see in the video. They were based off of some sketches (if I have time I'll put up the original drawing) I had done back in uni and since I had a lack of inspiration the other night I thought I'd see if I could reproduce them and then add some life to the lot of them.

Trunk have put up a few of the pieces that I worked on this past year and a bit about what I actually did on each, so take a look at them, enjoy!

1. Whistleless (Extract) - animation, composition, design.

2. Big School (Titles) - animated doodles and typography.

3. Major Lazer (Music Video) - rotoscoped monster tongue, matte work, animated bats.

4. The World's … And Me (Series 3) - background elements and men in suits animation.

As seen on DA

EDIT 2: Here it is, I've actually done a few more frames now so the bending down and back up looks a bit smoother, also did some work on a wobbly-armed robot and just about to do a sneaky sasquatch who might lose his hair.!

Alien Exit - WIP from Christopher Wright on Vimeo.

I have now worked on several projects at Trunk in London, expanded my portfolio, including a short film using potato print textures, Show Me Show Me for Cbeebies and a music video for Wave Machines' "I Go I Go I Go" and integrated nicely into their small core team.
A few months ago I was offered a job as technician/animator for Trunk and since the short film was completed about a fortnight back I've been helping out with a variety of tasks, including backing up the countless projects and organising their archived material as well as doing odd animations for other projects.
Last week for example I traced, cut and folded six lots of 'Trunk' from card for a little stop motion piece we might be doing and also made some Vegas style lights flash and chase each other for a Channel 4 documentary series.

At the cinema I've seen the latest Harry Potter (IMAX), Transformers 2, Moon, The Hangover, I Love You Man, Bolt 3D, Monster Vs Aliens 3D, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Watchmen (IMAX) and Star Trek. There's probably a couple more but can't recall them right now, I want to see Star Trek again but at the IMAX this time and Harry Potter would be great to watch twice on the big screen too.

Thanks to the wonders of eBay I have now been the proud owner of a PS3 since April and have ten games to go with it including the fantastic LittleBigPlanet, Guitar Hero III and Motorstorm Pacific Rift. The games all look fantastic and having an HD screen for my computer makes them appear even better.

EDIT: That video's framerate is clearly not right and since the tentacles took so long to do I'll upload it to Vimeo in a bit, stay tuned!

Until next time!

Oh (Hell)boy!

It's been quite a while since I last posted anything on here and having drawn this version of Hellboy after seeing the various interpretations of different superhero costumes at Project Rooftop and I love Mike Mignola's artwork so much (I wish I could work with shadow like he does!) The other bits and pieces are the initial gun sketch and the original left hand, the BPRD symbol and a skull thrown in at the end for good measure!

Recently I've not had so much time for my own work as we've been very busy at Trunk finishing Siri Melchior's latest children's short film 'Flojtelos/Whistleless', as well as a party for showing the latest showreel and a couple of never before seen animations, also caught up with a few ex-NSAD people at the NUCA animation graduate screening held in the Framestore basement.

A few weeks ago I got to see the first episode of Show Me Show Me, a new Cbeebies show that I worked on (at a BBC screening), animating the title sequence, five short story segments, nine 'wipes' and the credits, it was really great seeing it all put together and meeting all the other people who had worked on the live action side of things; it has been on since 6th July and if you missed it then catch up on the iPlayer!

Now I'm continuing on at Trunk helping out on the more technical side but still animating too - a new title sequence is a future possibility, I also hope to do more of my own animated and illustrated work.

Trundling along!

Animation

Here is a short preview (without sound) of the sixth segment of my ongoing adaptation of Tom Gauld's 'War'. It was actually made back in December of last year and unfortunately due to working at Trunk amongst other things I simply haven't done any more work on that project since this was rendered out of AfterEffects.

Hopefully once I put some more effort into it and complete it I can then contact Cabanon Press (Tom Gauld/Simone Lia's company) about showing them and perhaps persuading them to finance more little bits, maybe even the Guardian newspaper would like them for their website as his one panel comics appear in their Saturday Review every week; a simple animation of each one would be a nice weekly task.

Films

In the past couple of weeks I have seen four different films at the cinema,
- The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
- Slumdog Millionaire
- Bolt 3D
- Watchmen (IMAX)

They were all really enjoyable in thoroughly different ways, Button being a slow but intriguing story that was slightly hampered by a plot-telling device, that interrupted the flow for a minor story thread, but the performance capture used to make Brad Pitt age backwards is truly incredible and he plays the character from the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story very convincingly.

Slumdog had been hyped up by so many places and when I saw it it had already won several Oscars but I had avoided jumping on the bandwagon and having unrealistic expectations, however in the end I enjoyed it and think that having no real western 'stars' in the entire cast and entirely Indian locations gave it a different feel to many films that Hollywood are used to seeing on screen.

Bolt 3D was intriguing to me as it was the first Disney film under John Lasseter, responsible for a lot of Pixar's fantastic story-telling and animation, and to see it in 3D was impressive - things have come a long way from when I saw a Michael Jackson space film in Florida when I was 10 and 3D meant things flying out of the screen constantly, in Bolt 3D the technology (now with sleek plastic "sunglasses") was used primarily it seemed to add depth to the world and only once towards the end did something poke your eyes out (incidentally it was a syringe!) Even the trailers for forthcoming releases were in 3D which was something of a novelty and it looks like the vasst majority of animated films from this year on will be in 3D in some way or another, including Monsters Vs. Aliens!

Watchmen at the Bfi IMAX cinema in London was a sold out showing filled with comic geeks and people who were drawn in by the exciting trailer and more adult approach to the superhero genre (can it be classed as a genre, really?). Nevertheless, I have not read the graphic novel/comic/picture book/whatever you call it, and still followed the story well enough and as a special-effects laden film it truly stands up on the big screen (and with IMAX I really mean big when I say it) and in particular Rorshach's mask and Dr Manhattan being amazing feats of CGI helping to build the world, not take you jarringly out of it. I've heard mixed reactions from people who have read the source material but for what it's worth I loved the experience and look forward to seeing it again at some point in the future.

PS: I will scan in some drawings I've made recently in my new moleskine sketchbook, mostly odd looking creatures in pencil.

PPS: I bought an action figure with over 25 points of articulation for £2.99 the other day of Beast from X-Men and plan to do some sort of stop-motion with it inspired by Patrick Boivin's incredible work which I highly recommend you check out.

Flickering into existence.

Scaling mix-up

Alone from the pride, the sheep creep in...

Clouds (with legs and faces).

Eyepatch not included.

I want to be a Star! (Elephants optional)

Twittering (or "Worms, eggs and death").

What's all this then?

Painting it old school!

Walking (to) Work

Since of course in the War animation the men are part of an army they will mostly all be walking the same walk, nice and regimented, but that doesn't mean some of them mess it up from time to time, hence I have to draw a few more walk cycles... good practice!
I'm wondering if I will have this piece finished by the New Year as originally hoped (but not planned) certainly the sound will take time to do as I'll need to reacquaint myself with Logic.

Trunk are a lovely little animation company, and last Thursday as I was in London I stopped by their attic-based white washed studio and said hello to two of their directors Siri Melchior and Steve Smith. It is possible that they have a position for an intern and I will hopefully hear back soon, they are both lovely people and their studio space was delightful.

In other news: Bianca's moving over Sunday 14th and coming skiing with us!