Monday 8 December 2014

iiiiiiit's Chriiiiiiiistmas!

The latest Christmas Ad I worked on, I'm pretty sure the Red guys voice changes half way through! I did the shots, of the Red guy doing the jumping jack, and the little angel on the pack shot at the end.

Thursday 4 December 2014

Sweeeeet

Woo, finally a piece of work I got to take part in has been released! Feels like ages since something I've worked on has come out publicly! We've been working on a lot of internal projects recently, awaiting to see if I can upload them.

So without further ado, here is the Mcvites Christmas advert we did, and I got to animate the Narwhal!

Tuesday 25 November 2014

Freeview

Just had to post this on quickly, if you know anyone that worked on it, please let me know!

Wednesday 5 November 2014

Creative

I had such a creative weekend/week so far!

Here's what I've been up to

BUNNY BUNNY! BUNNY BUNNY!

This was a 3D wooden puzzle that Martyn got me for my Birthday. I decided, instead of having it just the wood, to paint each piece before hand. I laid them out as best I could, and guessed the relationships of the colours a bit. I was really happy with how it turned out.







And then, for aaaages, I had some MDF, ready to make my own canvas boards, and THEN for another amount of ages-ness, I had all the other materials to complete. Finally I got to make them. It's soooo simple to do, and really satisfying, I can't wait to paint them all. I made 15 in total, it was a bit of a juggling act in our small room.

Here they are drying away


And here they are finished! I ended up using copydex instead of PVA to hold down the backs, but I think I'm going to have to go over those with PVA, as the copydex still feels a tad tacky. 


I'm so happy I got to do some relatively random creative things this weekend, as well as see Dawn of the Dead for the first time, what a brilliant film. 

What did you get up to? How did you get inspired? If you didn't, why not dedicate an evening or sometime of the weekend to just indulge in something really creative and fun. 

Happy 5th of November! 


Tuesday 28 October 2014

Booky books

I've got my eye on these two books, has anyone else seen them? They look AMAZING.

Study of Pose: 1,000 Poses by Coco Rocha *edit* (01/04/2016) I did actually end up buying this book, and in theory it's great, but the actual quality of the book isn't worth the money. The pages are all stuck together because of how ridiculously thin they are, and there is only one pose per page (that's why it's so insanely thick!))

The blurp 

"A groundbreaking, in-depth exploration of the movement and flexibility of the human body, featuring 1,000 stunning black-and-white photographs that showcase the unique collaboration between international supermodel Coco Rocha, “The Queen of Pose,” and world-renowned photographer Steven Sebring. 

Supermodel Coco Rocha’s uncanny ability to strike distinctive, camera-ready poses at an astounding speed has earned her international fame throughout the fashion industry—and made her the muse of celebrated photographer Steven Sebring. In Study of Pose, Sebring and Rocha have documented 1,000 unique poses—theatrical, vibrant, elegant, dramatic, and unlike anything the fashion or art worlds have seen before."

It's taking all my will power not to swoosh these up and away into my bookcase.

Tuesday 21 October 2014

Worky works

So a couple of ad's I got to do a little bit of work on came out this week

I got to do some animation tests and some drawings for this little guy, Sebastian did an awesome job on the final animation, what do you think?



And Audi, not much in terms of an animation feat. but definitely an insane technical challenge, I did some work on laying out the car for one of the sim shots, and animating the car on the landing

Tuesday 14 October 2014

Inspired by

So this week I was overwhelmingly inspired by Deisign's post about his character design for the new Animation Mentor character Aia.

I hope he doesn't mind linking one of his pages here:


Whilst I've been making my short film Cat and Moth, I've found it a challenge to correctly portray to the rigger how exactly I need the rig to work. We are creating a solution at the moment, where the rig will have separate editions depending on what needs to happen in particular shots, as we don't want a super heavy rig that accommodates for absolutely everything. However, this rig sheet above has inspired me to make much more complex and detailed drawings to communicate what I want in a much clearer layout.  Thank you for the post, it was very inspirational.

As per usual, inspiration can be found anywhere, so remember to always put aside a little time each day to explore and discover, try things you've never done before, try out something completely different, it'll add to the mind bank.

You could buy a ton of random magazines, based around cooking, fishing, art, photography, animals and find pictures that inspire you to create. You could join a club or go to a convention you wouldn't usually go to. It gives you a little window into a whole other world, and you never know what you make create from that!

To check out Deisign's site go here http://www.deisign.com/ and to read the full post go here (I highly recommend you do) http://www.deisign.com/2014/10/animation-mentor-crew-characters.html

Friday 3 October 2014

Press release

Press release on my time at Teesside and beyond




Thursday 2 October 2014

Secrets

It's no secret that I've not been updating my blog with my own work for a while. Most of my drawings of late, are related to jobs I am or have worked on that can't be shown yet, BUT SOON. I'm hoping to show off some of the projects that have been going on here soon too.

BUT I did get my new Surface Pro 3 for my Birthday, oooohh yes. And it's a teeny computer full of potential. To say thank you to my family, friends and Martyn, I decided to make a little 2D animated thank you card


I'm really up for doing some little 2D projects on the side, just for fun. Just like Wayne Unten, check out his blog here. And you've probably seen this piece:


So does anyone have any suggestions for a first assignment? Anything at all, but keep em short ;)

Friday 26 September 2014

Glen

It's Friday!

And this means Disney music all day!

I had the honour of meeting Glen Keane this week at a presentation at work. It was quite something, I've never been quite so star struck. Such an inspirational man, with so many words of wisdom it's untrue. He was presenting his latest work (which I'm sure you've seen) but if you haven't it's embedded below.

Last year, at CTN, Martyn and I were lucky enough to meet his daughter Claire, who has such a beautiful and traditional style. And you can see from hearing Glen talk, what kind of household they grew up together in. Such a creative and inspirational environment.

It just drums it home even more, how important it is to keep inspired. Listening to people talk about their experiences, watching new films, visiting art galleries, creating things, anything! It really feeds the soul.

So, here are some of Glen's goodness for your viewing pleasure

Friday 19 September 2014

CLASH Aaaaahhhhh

So in the pub last night, I witnessed this cool ad, and found a whole lot more as part of the chain, all advertising for the Clash of the Clans game.


It's quite hard to find out who the actual animators were, but there are credits here. If anyone know's who worked on these, it would be great to credit there names on this post :). Clash of the Clans had become increasingly popular, and it's quite apparent by their extraordinary ad campaign for sure. Awesome work.

*EDIT* - I have been informed by @Tekkzi that Psyop are in fact responsible for these animations :) Awesome work!

Thursday 21 August 2014

Fresh!

I was watching TV with dinner and this great little ad popped up into my eyes. Does anyone know who is responsible for the animation? I'd like to credit them. Fun concept, and nicely executed for an ad!



*UPDATE* I have since found the animator, and you can find him here on twitter @_Wengerball

Wednesday 20 August 2014

Mistakes


Drawing is a great outlet, I find it therapeutic and mesmerising, it's a gigantic time sink hidden in a sketch book.

Whether you enjoy drawing or just use it for practical purposes, it's an essential tool into the world of observation. It's helped me see things that I didn't even know existed.

I read somewhere, and I regret that I can't remember where, but I live by "No line is a bad line". Meaning, that even when you draw a line you are unhappy with you can learn from it, and to be honest, you can use this and apply it to everything in life. When I've made a choice in animation that doesn't work, I've learnt from one of my tutors to log it, so you can use it when it is appropriate in the future. For example, this part of the animation looks creepy and it should feel relaxed, rather then stiff. So we can use that comment, okay, so this is how something creepy looks, I know now when I get a creepy character to animate, I can use it! There's no such thing as a wasted effort. Which makes all these creative endeavors even better!

Also, I just wanted to point you guys to Aaron Blaise's YouTube channel, the drawing and painting tips he is giving away for free are insan. I'm currently working my way through them and they are so informative, anything from colour theory to painting fur. He tries to angle everything towards all kinds of artists, drawers, painters, photographers, animators and more. Check him out here. He also has a great website full of his paintings and tutorials here.

So be sure to explore, play, have fun and don't be afraid to make mistakes, they are the most important bit!

Monday 18 August 2014

Twit-Twoo

Thanks to someone on bookface, I was reminded of this advert that I saw on TV the other day. Brilliant!

Friday 15 August 2014

One for the Showreel

Friday's are meant for experimenting, right?! 

A successful attempt (I think) at transferring animation from a generic woman rig to a generic man rig. I didn't realise we walked so differently...or maybe this is just what we do to men?

One for the showreel from India Barnardo on Vimeo.

Thursday 14 August 2014

Comments and flowerings

Okay so after 8 years (8 YEARS?!?!) and over 15,000 visits, I've finally noticed that I can change the comments so anybody can write something! Haha whoops!

I welcome your comments, and waffles and questions :)

Through my other blog I have also recently discovered this great site, where you can follow all your regular blogs! It's so easy, it's like making your very own custom newspaper! I'd definitely recommend signing up if you have a whole heap of blogs burried in your bookmarks that you like to follow. It makes it so easy. Also, if you are on there, I'm on there too, let's be friends....

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Wednesday 13 August 2014

Apologies and Sadness

First of all apologies

I want to apologies how quiet I've been in the last few months. It all got a bit mental really.

I had a lot on my plate, and I had to prioritise my time, which meant iAnimate came first.

However...I've decided to take a block break from iAnimate, meaning I'll start Workshop 4 in their winter term in January (as who wants to go outside in January!?). Which gives me roughly 4-5 months of playtime, hurrah! Although, for the first few days, I've felt like a bit of a lost cause. Not knowing how to embrace the silence that is a late summers evening. Fear not, of course, I've come up with a horrible amount of weird and wacky things to keep me occupied, and I will try and exhibit my doings up here for you to keep an eye on me.

Planning achievements for the next 4-5 months has been tricky, because right this second it feels slightly overwhelming. Are you as addicted to to-do lists as me?! Please tell me, so I don't feel so alone.

So my main aims are:

- To be update my iAnimate page, with all the work I've produced up until now, as it's looking a little skeletal.
- explore some creative crafty arty projects, wire sculpture, more drawing, improv class, making things and ideas!
- finish the fancy animatic I've been working on for Cat and Moth, and get the site up and running so I can show you guys what's in the works
- Go outside and explore, take photos, get texture rubbings, be a kid
- Spend lots of time with my wonderful fella, who's been putting up with having an animating robot as a girlfriend for the past 8 months
- Probably some kind of updated showreel would probably be good too!

So yeah, a few biggy's, but all these things are fun, so that's grand! Can't wait to inundate you with exploration and creativity. It's all about keeping inspired right?

Now for sadness 

Robin Williams left our planet yesterday, but only in a physical form. I've never been pushed to tears at a celebrity death, but this one got me. As my friend pointed out, for our generation he was such a big part of our childhood, we almost felt like we knew him. But I don't think we will ever truly know how he felt. Depression is an awful killer, and awareness of this illness needs to be much much bigger. I hear people saying he was selfish, why didn't he think of his family, everybody loved him, he was always laughing and looked happy, but it just doesn't work like that. Those are thoughts of a logical person unaffected and outside of depression, but within it, it's a whole other way of thinking, that an outsider could never really comprehend.

But, we are fortunate to have so many wonderful recordings and memories of his pure and utter genius, and I'm thankful, that despite his demons and depression, he shared his wonderful self with us all. He affected us all in some way, it's quite incredible for one being to have that impression. He's one of the few celebrities that I would actually like to have met, I wouldn't know what to ask first. What a superb person, and a tragic loss. I hope he knows how much everyone loved him, and I hope he is at peace now. If you're into stand up comedy, check out his stuff on Spotify, and check Inside the Actors Studio too, truly inspirational...now that's something to get inspired by!

On that note, I'm outta here x




Monday 11 August 2014

Joe Weatherly Drawing Workshop

A log over-due post indeed.

About a month or so ago I attended Joe Weatherly's drawing workshop. It was fantastic, I can't describe the awesomeness, and how much I learnt during the 4 days. If you ever get the chance to attend his classes around the world, I highly recommend it.

The first day was spent in a lecture room, talking about anatomy and artistic styles. It was great to be introduced to a whole heap of new artists and going over some of the classics. Joe drew out how we should focus on structure underneath the animal. As once you know what is going on in the inside, you know why stuff is protruding on the outside. Structurally, it also helps a ton with animating animals. He advised us for our future to studies to spend allotted times on studying certain aspects of anatomy, i.e studying hands or paws for a month.

The second day was spent at the Natural History Museum (NHM), where we could spend time studying the structure of the animal from the inside, and not worrying about it wandering off :P. I find your mind's eye likes to summaries and soften your impression of construction, you start to assume you know how it works, mainly because, well, we have bodies! But drawing skeletons and really studying them illustrates how many things you miss, or assume are there or not there. These studies are purely that, for studying, the pieces from the full four days are there for learning, not to put on the wall. I also found out a lot of structural information that I hadn't really seen before, it was truly eye-opening.

The third and fourth day was spent at the London Zoo. We mainly studied the giraffes, as they reflected a lot of what we had studied at the previous destinations, i.e. horses and stags. We also got to spend a little time with one of the Tiger's, the Lions, and a bunch of reptiles.

As we walked around the Zoo spending a lot of time at each animal, I took a few photos for reference studies later on (see below) and we also got a lot of attention from the public, at both the Zoo and the NHM. It's funny how different people react to us studying, and the difference between very intrigued children and very naughty ones!

One of the things we were asked to practice and think about was to start to learn and remember how the animals looked, because as they are always moving, we were going to have to start drawing from our imagination and memory to get the poses we wanted want. It was a really interesting way to train ones brain.

Anyway, so I've collected a few of my sketch book pages and a few of the reference photographs I've taken, all posted below. If you want more information on Joe Weatherly or want to start looking at animal anatomy more closely, I'll send you to two places, Joe's website here, and Joe's book. His book goes over a lot of what we studied in person, and it's a great place to start, I highly recommend, and I'll be adding this firmly onto the reading list page. Definitely keep an eye out for his next workshop, I'm going to try my hardest to attend!

Natural History Museum


Leg doodle and notes by Joe to help me construct my Mammoth better. 


London Zoo
                                                           From Memory, after some studying


 Sleepy Tiger and a very happy Lama



Reptile House




Camel's and Okapi's

The Camel on the top right looks a little like Ian Hislop


                                                                    Okapi Butt

At the end of the Last day, there was a guy with a Giraffe's skull, so I managed to get in some scrappy studies to help construct the head a little better in later observational studies.


Thanks to Joe for coming to England and braving our cold Summer (compared to California!) and thanks to Gillian for organising it all!

Over and Out



Sunday 20 July 2014

Bic

So after attending Joe Weatherly's Drawing Workshop (which I will do a post about), I've got more and more into drawing with Bic Biro's and here's a little page from Friday lunchtime


Wednesday 18 June 2014

Teesside

Soooo I said I'd help my University with their Alumni Association. I didn't realise they'd make my face THIS big, but I'm flattered nonetheless. Also, it was so close to my promotion, my title is wrong (just want to point that out :P)




Friday 13 June 2014

David Beckham

I worked on a new advert for the new Sky Sports channel with David Beckham. We had to attack sportsmen with flying drones, and I got to animate the drone that flies at Beckham's head :D. At one point, one of the feedback comments was "We want more danger" referring to the closeness of the drone to Beckham's head. It was a fun few days work!

 

Tuesday 3 June 2014

BLANK

There's post's I've mentioned in the past about not being afraid of the blank white paper and techniques I've used in life drawing classes that I used to teach to help the other students get past the "fear". Well, I came to write this post, as circling the internet has been this video (below) and Ricky illustrates wonderfully one of the techniques you can use, and tapping into that inner child.


Moreover, last night I was reading "Drawn to Life" again (nearly done!), and I got to section about how you can get inspired by an impression, by observing, but if you don't express this, it will lead to depression. As you get in a forever cycle of feeling like you have down something (by getting inspired) but haven't had anything to grant you a rewarding and accomplished feeling (by doing), and it starts to have the adverse affect on you. Once you get inspired, remember to illustrate your feelings, your findings and your observations, even to note down that silly thing you saw happen on the way to work. 

Now, let go and have fun, oh and get inspired ;)

Friday 30 May 2014

It's Friday!

And that also means, remember to get inspired (like all the days!)

Man these paintings are inspirational. They are taking from google maps and painted in their style. It's a group of facebook, and there are tons! I can't wait to get time to do one of these.

Amadeus WaltenspĆ¼hl

Korzen Greg

Nickolas Russell

Check out the facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/290155717818479/?fref=nf


Thursday 29 May 2014

Hands and Feet

There's always this thing people say "oooo hands are so hard" or "oooo portraits are the hardest" - to be honest, it's all pretty hard, BUT it can be simplified, in actual fact, hands are a shape, made up of shapes, just like the face and the figure. It makes it so much easier to digest thinking of it like that. At iAnimate, we had a great lecture from Stephen Melagrano about appealing hand shapes, describing different poses like leaves, for example. Anyway, after watching Rad's old lecture yesterday, I found another on his blog "Hands and feet" and it's great, and i'm only a little way in. Check it out here.

I'd definitely recommend spending some separate time on studying hands and feet, as these are some of the most important tools in gesture. As stated in "Drawn to Life" - you can read a pose with just hands and feet, but the pose isn't as clear if you just draw the torso. I think it's important, as it can be a common thing in life drawing or gesture drawing, and you see multiple times the feet and hands are cut off. They are essential body language tools, and definitely one to keep an eye on.

I've started a small board on hand references

http://www.pinterest.com/indi_pops/hand-references/

and have a ton of different feet and hands and body l; language references on animpin http://www.pinterest.com/ejsu28/reference-feet/

Maybe watch one of your favorite movies and sketch the hand gestures, it'll really help if you're into animation too. Man, I need to go draw now.

Tuesday 27 May 2014

Rad the man

Yelllooo me maties!

Over the last week I've been re-watching one of Rad Sechrist's old lectures (If you don't know who Rad is I'll put all the links at the bottom).

He's brilliant and has some superb stuff on his blog too. He was asked about how to draw a good freehand circle, and one of his mentors a long time ago got him a massive wad of paper, and made him draw a whole lot of circles. So I was playing around, and ended up playing with bubbles


But aside from that, there was also a point he made about how sometimes people scribble a super rough idea first, it just looks like a blob, and then draw out from that. So that's where the girl above playing with bubbles was born from. I really like the technic, adds spontaneity to the workflow for sure! TRY IT! :D

Rad: a storyboard artist at Dreamworks.
Rad's Blog: Rad How To
LECTURE

Tuesday 6 May 2014

10 pin bowling


Have lots of shiny new pins that I've been collecting recently. I really want to get back into my drawing habits more, so hopefully I'll have some new stuff to show you guys in the future. For now, I keep looking at these beautiful works, and keep inspired, I hope you are too!

http://www.pinterest.com/indi_pops/animpin/

And here's an oldy I found, reference studies I did for the Galaxy advert


They also brought out a new version of the advert for America for the Dove chocolate bar, watch it here.

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Squirrel!

So you visit the YouTube's homepage today, you shall see my animated Squirrel running across the screen in Chrome. I should have a version soon to upload here, but for now check it out here:

www.youtube.com

Saturday 22 March 2014

SPRING IS HERE!

And so is Animgather!

See you next Saturday ;)

For more details check out our facebook group or @Animgather on twitter.

This is our third event so far. We usually meet at a certain time (this time being 2pm) and then carry on for as long as people want to hang out! People have attended from all over Europe and we always have a ton of fun. You can check out our past shenanigans here:

Photos
Videos

2pm at www.thedoodlebar.com London, UK. Feel free to bring a packed lunch/picnic type thing, snazzy pizza take out is available too, and there's bar in the venue. Also, places to doodle for the doodlers!

Be sure to bring your cameras and film equipment, as we always like to post pictures throughout the day and after the event.

Here's a video to celebrate spring time



Can't wait to meet you all :D

Framestore even tweeted about us :)

Sunday 9 March 2014

IN CONTROL

Some Animal drawings I did for my planning stage for the new Lipton advert


To check out the advert and more, I've written about it here

Monday 24 February 2014

Worky works

Soooo I haven't really posted an updates for a while on this here main page

I've been super busy with work, a course and various other things I've decided to launch onto my plate this fine 15th year into the 2000's.

So on this page you'll find out more about the project below, Nokia X. It was my first project leading as an animator! It was such an awesome experience, and I really loved working with the team. Much fun was had. We've been working on and off this project since September, and it's nice to finally have it in the public domain.


I've also been hard at work at iAnimate. An online animation school run by Jason Ryan, over in the states. It's superb, I recommend it to all levels. The amount of content and instruction is insane. For example  last night our instructor gave us a 5 hour review, 5 HOURS! Crazy. Well worth the pennies. I've learnt a ton and we're only half way into this block. I'm keeping all my updates here http://indiasplingplong.blogspot.co.uk/p/anim-pops.html

And here's my latest "finished" assignment (nothing's ever finished!)


I'm also working on my short film bit by bit, and hopefully will have more stuff to show soon, as I really want to start teasing you people with it! :D. I'm so stoked about it, I just need the time to finish it now. As well as that, i'm trying to learn a bunch of software, more rigging stuff and more drawing and painting. I had compromise on the running and most other social aspects of life. My boyfriend helps me to stay in touch with reality, just about ;).

So yeah, hopefully there will be more updates of lots of fun things soon!

Meow!

Hilarious cat/girl/mobile phone advert! VFX by MPC


Sunday 23 February 2014

Animgather Spring is here!

Animgather, the Spring edition, has been announced!


We've already had someone book their flight from Sweden! Woop! The venue looks super fun too. We hope to see you there!

Join our group and event on facebook.
Follow us on Twitter @Animgather

and check out out past shenanigans on youtube and flickr

The Doodle Bar
29th March 2014
Battersea, London
2pm

Pixar Scorez

Last night my fella and I went to see Pixar in Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London. It was amazing to hear the music in that way, and they played the visuals along with the music, much like the Fantasia version we went to last year. If it comes to a city near you I plead you to go and see this. The music is stunning (of course) and, personally, I saw it in a different light. It's made me want to watch Ratatouille again sometime this week, oooww man, the music is soo good :D.




Saturday 8 February 2014

Friday 31 January 2014

Clips of the week

Someone shared a brilliant video from quite a superb channel on youtube Movie Without Words. It's a perfect demonstration of how far gestures and body language can really get you. Here's my favourite so far, especially about 6 mins in. *SPOILER ALERT* Don't watch if you haven't seen the film, do check out the channel, as there's tons on there, you are bound to have seen one of them.


This was a TV show created by a frustrated Father and his 1 year old daughter, as he found most children's TV to be uninspiring. I love how bonkers it is, and yet so cute.


Loving all the Lego movie trailers and teasers, I'm trying not to watch too many because I want it to be more of a surprise. But I just had to share this clip. I love how innovative the animation of the shower is, such an awesome idea.


I've maybe been a bit slow at discovering this, but Rick and Morty is brilliant


Don't Hug Me I'm Scared - Time. Hilarious little animation about Time



Some nice little gif's I saw on FFFOUND!


This went round like wild fire (for obvious reasons), so you've probably already seen it. A brilliant TED video on timing and spacing.



As always I keep a lot of inspiration as I go at Animpin

Remember to get INSPIRED!

Tuesday 28 January 2014

iAnimate

iAnimate is a blast!! I highly recommend it.

If your interested in any of my progress, so not too bore you, I've started a thread of events here Anim pops. Or just click the navigation button just above the posts.

If you are feeling like your work is nearly there, but you really want to hone in on your skill and your education, iAnimate is a brilliant source. There is so much content, the students are great and the instructors too! Stephen Melagrano is amazing, he's really opened my eyes to things. I really can't believe I'm 4 weeks in already. Anyway, check out their latest podcast here, it's a doozy!

Any Q's, just shout!


I have a very important message...

Sent to me via twitter

Saturday 18 January 2014

Post it tips.

I found a pile of post it notes with tips I had written on them a while ago, not sure how they made their way to my bits and bobs draw, but they are back and out with a vengeance! I think two on the left are from Directing the Story by Francis Glebas, the top right one from one of my drawing books, and the bottom right one is my moto! (although probably borrowed from someone too). I'm definitely going to have to write some more to save for my future self. I thought they would be good to share, and hopefully they'll inspire someone :)


Wednesday 8 January 2014

New Year, New you!

I've been posting a lot this week, but I couldn't resist posting this link below. What an inspiring human being. Turn your negatives round into positives, get that fire burning. You'll definitely feel motivated and inspired after this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/07/lizzie-velasquez_n_4550829.html

Tuesday 7 January 2014

Animgather Christmas edition

With busynesstimes I haven't had chance to review Animgather 2.0, until now!

It was another gigantic success. I'm so thrilled that a whole load of human beans turned up, a bunch of old faces and a bunch of new ones too. We were located in a pub function room near Waterloo, which housed a giant mirror, for the vain ones ;). I think at the peak of the day there was about 45-50 gatherer's. Everyone was in high Christmas spirits. We had origami paper available, sketch pads, pens, music (not that that could be heard from all the chatting!) and of course we attempted a human stop motion animation again (totally optional to all attendees). This time we created a human Christmas tree, and here it is:


I adore meeting new people, it's such an inspiring experience. Some of the feedback I got was that people were a little confused by the title of our gather, "ANIM"gather, (and rightly so) but it really is an invitation to ANYONE who is creative. It just happened to be named by a bunch of animators. I really want to encourage a more diverse crowd. This time we had people that love games, film, commercials, art, drawing, socializing  and I think our furthest travelling member was from Norway! You don't have to be an animator to join us :). It's all about meeting creative people, having some fun, and getting inspired! You never know who you might meet, and where it might lead. 

As people got into the origami making, we predictably has to have a paper aeroplane contest:


It was a fab day, and we have a brand new exciting venue for the next gather in the pipeline as I type this sentence. It's definitely going to be a good one if it get's approved, lots and lots of opportunity for fun!

Here is the photographic evidence from the last event, be sure to give them a gander. 


And to keep up to date with any news, event dates or general chit chat, you can follow us on:

Facebook Animgather group - be sure to add yourself to get invited to the events :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR from Animgather, here's to an awesome 2014, and we look forward to meeting you soon :)



Monday 6 January 2014

Sunday 5 January 2014

Stop Motion

Here is my boyfriend and I's second attempt at a vine! It's surprising wonderful, being this hands on with a mini little project/app over a Sunday afternoon. The ending get's a little bit wonky, but we are pretty please with the first 2/3's, and we've learnt a lot for the next one! :D


Why not try out your own experiments? It really get's the creative juices flowing, but it feels like a break from work too!

Thursday 2 January 2014

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody!

I hope you all had a wonderful festive season and a great New Year knees up. Did you get some awesome creative Christmas presents?

I got a 3 set of different blackwing pencils, I've used them a little bit so far, and I'm very excited to start experimenting with them. For those of you that may have started a drawing New Years resolution. Mike Yamada and his wife are competing to finish a 108 page sketch book this month... check it out:


Here's what we're using - 5.5"x8.5" 108 pages front & back. End pages optional.                                 pic.twitter.com/OawNkbG7Qs
 — Mike Yamada (@michaelyamada) January 1, 2014


So why not join in?

Also have a peak at Moose Allain's vine animations, some really cool stuff. I got the opportunity to meet him at the designers market (Southbank, London) over the Christmas period, very nice chap indeed!


And here was our "Morning after the night before" attempt after a heavy NYE


Here's to an awesome 2014, and remember to always get inspired!