GOATS IN THE MACHINE

Reading doesn't really work in animation does it? I thought this could have been a good little idea for a series but its pretty boring just reading a conversation instead of watching the characters react and interact..oh well..it was worth a try.

the dead sea

heres a wee e-sting i sent in to e4 for their annual e-sting competition. e-bygum! i've had this idea to animate deaths-head jellyfish for a while now and thought i would put it to use.

MASTERBOT

Do robots wank? With access to the world wide interporn i can only presume that they do. Hence the one massive arm.

EVERYONES A CRITIC

still playing about with cut outs and textures but I'm trying to incorporate them in a more illustrative way... not sure if i'm too happy with the result though. I might ttry another one tonight to see if i can make it work.

a proper hairy robot

i've run out of cut outs so i've been raiding amazon for pictures of things to cut up.
photoshop is pretty good for skewing these elements which is helping to give the character a more realistic perspective...but i think i prefer the weirdness of the original ones... hmm..need to experiment more i think. looks good with the hair though.

Hairy Robots

Some cut out designs for another animation idea i've started working on with my friend.
I got a pile of catalogues and brochures and tried ot make robots out of them. Hmm... this isnt going to happen is it.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Might as well throw this up here today as well. I've been reading a bit of that Richard Dawkins book all about how come theres no big man upstairs and in one of the chapters he mentions the flying spaghetti monster and in my head i had a pretty good idea what he would look like. The thing is that he had already been 'designed' and had these two giant meatballs hanging in his chest...well, i thought it looked shit and thought i could do better so here he is battling the invisible pink unicorn. Make of it what you will.

been a while

i've been a tad busy doing freelance stuff lately but i'm managing to manage my time a little bit better and get back into the old animation stuff. Ya beauty. Got Flash installed and started playing around with an idea i had of animating a weekly diary...every week...haha..fat chance.

LIMPCYCLE2

GOD BLESS YOU TUBE

LIMPCYCLE LINETEST

TURNAROUND KIDS!!!!

my 'friend' Hugh has pointed out a pretty huge error with one of the images of Solomon, namely that when Solomon is walking away from camera his eye patch strap should wrap
'round under his left ear... which is pretty obvious when you think about it and something that shouldn't be difficult to remember in such a simple character design but there you go...

So... thats why I've done a model sheet of the wee guy so this sort of thing never happens again... that is until my uber pedantic eagle-eyed friend picks some more holes in my pictures...hehe.

Originals

here are the original inked versions of the illustrations below. These were scanned in at 300dpi then fiddled with in ye olde photoshoppe. Theres some quite a rough inking and colouring going on but i think it works really well for the character, way better than the clean cut vector stuff anyway. I've started including a bottle of booze in a lot of the images of him so I'm starting to think its going to be quite an integral part of his character. Drunken monkeys are much funnier than sober ones i suppose.

UPDATE*UPDATE*UPDATE*

Woohoo! New stuff!!! at last!!! yay?!!111oneone.

I've got quite a bit of stuff I want to get up here, namely some line test animations that i've been working on and some soundtrack samples my friend Mat has been creating for me but first I'm gonna put up some new solomon illustrations i've been working on... I hope you like them.

Queen of the undead

Had a busy weekend doing non pirate monkey stuff unfortunately but i thought i would post some more sketch work. Here are a couple of attempts at designing Tiamat, Queen of the undead. I came across the name when i initially thought up the concept of the astral seas as opposed to the astral planes, where all the dead pirates exist. I thought it was so obvious that someone must have come up with it before, and they had, but just not how i expected.

Heres what I found:

1. Chaos Of The Sea (Mummu Tiamat)

Within the Fathomless depths of Astral Chaos
a Sea churns like the madness of Her Dreams.
She is the Chaos Serpent, the Chaos that dwells in the Sea.
She is of primordial essence, and her essence is transcended through me.

Spawned from Her are the restless ones;
ancient ones; mighty ones; and the Chaos of the Sea. S
he knows, sees and controls all, and through Her so shall we.
Venom is her Blood and unsparing are her fangs -
Her essence transcends all planes.

KA-SHUR-RA MULKI MUMMU KI-TA GIR-TAB
SA DUG MU MUD SISKUR MAH USUMGAL AB-ZU
MU ASHTA ZA EZEZU AM LU-GUB-BA NI-ME-GAR
KA-GUR PETA BABKAMA LARUBA ANAKU INA ABSU.
IA SARRATUM TIAMATU SAL-LUGAL INA MAB GUZA
IA BEL KINGU DUMU-LUGAL INA EKEMU KU KUG!

Chaos has risen unto her immortal throne.
TIAMAT, thou art infinite, as the depths below the seas.

Awesome celestial body, born under Scorpio,
accept my blood offering mighty Dragon of the primeval source.
My heart is yours. Furious but Dwelling in silence.
Keeper of the gate, open the gate so that I may enter here -
the gate unto cosmic truth - the gate unto the Abyss.

Hail Goddess TIAMAT, Queen of the exalted throne.
Hail Lord KINGU, Prince of the Powers of Darkness.

Haha... love it. It's by a band called crimson moon. I'm going to have to listen to some of their music cos their lyrics rock... in a devil worshipping way of course. Anyways, aye, theres some good stuff in there... the idea that this great big sea serpent is queen of the undead... love it.. and she uses "restless ones" to do her bidding... magic! Her name sounds a little bit 'dungeons and dragons' but I can live with it... so the fun part is trying to design her. I don't think i've nailed her yet as she doesn't look queen of the undeady enough yet... heres my first pass anyway.

Solomon at war

i've not been able to visit him yet but over in germany Solomon is appearing in Pictoplasmas characters at war exhibition.

I was blown away when i first saw these pictures as I recognise so many of those characters and their designers that i feel humbled to be in their presence. It's also made me more determined than ever to finish this animation so that i can start to earn my place amongst such great company.

I also noticed a couple of other pirate monkeys in there as well... i just hope to fuck they're not ghosts pirate monkeys or i might as well give up this project right now.

'Reference'

I was trawling for images a while back and i stumbled across this illustration by Dan Krall. Goddamn it's beautiful. When I close my eyes and try to picture my animation i keep coming back to this. The palette is incredible.. really haunting...and I love the way the wee man in the boat is so callously tossing his neighbour overboard... creepy stuff... so i'm gonna have to rip it off.

quick stuff

here are a couple of attempts at trying to breathe a bit of life into the wee bugger. I'm going to have to watch his shape though as he's not exactly staying consistent yet... I'm gonna have to focus on that... I'll do a model sheet for him this week if i get a chance. Ooh, here's some crackers that i might have to 'referance'. If you know of any more then let me know, cheers.

first pass storyboards

ready for action

here he is kicking some piratey ass. I bought a great book by ben cauldwell about illustrating action and fantasy characters... you should get it. cheap to buy, expensive to miss... if you know what i mean. anyway.. i've been trying to absorb as much of it as possible and the image above absorbed a fair bit.