Under Milkwood (animated short)

(Click through to view in HD)

Under Milkwood is a (radio) play by Dylan Thomas and I was given a brief to animate a section of it. This is the finished version!

Come closer now.

Only you can hear the houses sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt and silent black, bandaged night. Only you can see in the blinded bedrooms, the combs and petticoats over the chairs, the jugs and basins, the glasses of teeth, Thou Shalt Not on the wall, and the yellowing, dickybird-watching pictures of the dead. Only you can hear and see, behind the eyes of the sleepers, the movements and countries and mazes and colours and dismays and rainbows and tunes and wishes and flight and fall and despairs and big seas of their dreams.

From where you are, you can hear their dreams.

Here are the stills:

Aesop's Fables: The Cat Maiden

This is a retelling of Aesop's fable The Cat Maiden whereby a cat is changed into a woman who behaves like a human at first, but returns to her basic instinct upon seeing a mouse.

I reworked these and I'm glad I did because they look much better than the previous version, especially the first one.

Project 2: Editorial

This project was to take a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall article from The Saturday Guardian and illustrate it via drypoint or etching. I chose drypoint since it was a familiar technique and I could manipulate it much faster than with etchings. At first I did not like the sound of an editorial project as this was not my strongest point - but I do have a love for cooking and food, so this wasn't too troublesome. Plus I had to make these dishes so that I had something to draw from! This article is for 'Simple Sausage Recipes':

 

Project 1: Reportage for the Blue Plaque Society

This project was a simple one, but not without challenges. The first part was to go out, find buildings with a Blue Plaque on them, and then draw those buildings. The next was to make them into A2 posters that would advertise what they were. It was difficult trying to make such a simple image appealing, without drowning it in fancy, unnecessary design 'charms'. In the end I think I achieved decent results, limiting myself to pure tone and gradients:

Rome drawings

I went to Rome for a few days; here's a compilation of my sketchbook pages!

 Brave New World illustrations (cover, #2, #3, #1)

Pencil, Watercolours, Photoshop

October 2012

These have been reworked for the degree show this weekend! Much better; if only I'd done them before the assessment - but there you have it!

Animation: I Hear Thunder

My second year final project is DONE!

It's a quick little story about a boy and a cloud who both want to soak up the sun, but neither want to give way! The moral of the story is to not mess about with storm clouds. All the frames were drawn in Photoshop, and composited in AfterEffects. This was an 8 week project, and I am glad I got it finished in time.

Looking back I can see things I would like to tweak, but there is not enough time right now. The strange thing about using audio is that it changes the perception of time, so there are scenes that could have been a frame longer or shorter. It also made me rethink the moods of scenes. For the most part though, I have realised that perhaps the story is not as clear to the public as it is to me and I am already thinking of little fillers here and there which would help carry the story a lot better.

However, for now, it is quite a polished animation (for a newbie student). It's only my third I've ever done, and I am improving. I'm going to tackle it a bit more, because I always did want to work in the animation field.

Here's the video here, but to see it in a much better quality: http://youtu.be/Ka5opgIiyEA

Claire - A Poem.

Claire - A Poem.   |  Photoshop  |  18th March 2012

This is a poem about Claire, a girl who doesn't know she's been murdered. All she recalls is before it happened, when she basked and played in the sunshine, and afterwards when she 'wakes', cold and alone. It's been years since she died and though she's come to terms with it, she's still a wandering soul.

Children's Picture Book

*Scroll down for the finished pieces.

We had this assignment 5 weeks ago - to come up with a 32 paged children's picture book. What we need is a finished dummy book, and 4 double spreads (mounted and in situ). 1 week left on this now, zipping through it quite nicely.

Flat textures for the first spread.

Flat textures for the first spread.

Second spread process.

I'm laying down flat textures first, such is the way of cutouts. When they're all done, I'll be going back to see if shadows look decent. I've been looking at a lot of cutout artwork, but very few have tonal variety. I'll play around once I'm confident these look decent without.

Flat textures done for the second spread.

Figured out how to drop a simple shadow, so onwards with flat textures!

Third spread done.

Fourth spread done.

All I need now is text, and I should be good to go and print.

Here are all 5 finished pieces; 
the first 2 make a single spread.

Text has been added, and I'm off to the printer's tomorrow!

Puzzle that went to Pieces

Uni Brief 2 - ‘News in Brief’

26th November 2011

Lineart done in ink, colours in Photoshop

*Colours are warped slightly as the printouts usually end up darker than the screen image;

therefore the printed version has richer, bolder colour variants than this!