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Character Animation
March 2006: I've just started doing some of my own animation work again at home, after a day animating in the office. I'll be posting more clips up as and when they are finished so keep checking back.
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 Witch Walk (388 kb)
Hopefully the first of a new series of animations using my old witch character. I've rebuilt her rig from the ground up after doing some research and she's nice to animate. This short clip of a basic walk took me about half a day to set up the rig, and maybe a day to animate it, just in my spare time after work. I've now slowed this animation down slightly, and I think it looks better for it.
 

All the animations below were completed at Central St Martins School of Art and Design between October 2004 - June 2005.
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Treasure Trouble (5.87 mb)
This is my final animation from the Central St Martins course, - it is the longest animation at one and a half minutes, and there's also alot of technical 3D stuff going on.
I'm fairly happy with the result, especially the characterisation and the blend of 2d and 3d. In some places the pacing is too even and maybe the animation is too samey.
The whole project took 8 weeks from initial script writing to realisation - about 4 full weeks were devoted to actually animating.
 
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Witch (2.31 mb)
 This piece took me about 3 weeks to animate; there are a few glitches where I was losing control of the character slightly, but overall I think this has a good rhythm and snappiness to it, which suits the character. I watched Kiki's Delivery Service by Myasaki quite alot to see how a girl flies around on a broom!
 
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Carving (3.01 mb)
A lip synch piece. I really like this guy and his pig sidekick. This took a week to do.
This video has sound
 
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Snowboarder (819 kb)
Another lip synch piece. This took a week to do from conception to final rendering. Another guy, another sidekick....
This video has sound
 
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The Box of Doom (2.83 mb)
An exercise in close-up body language, looking at facial expressions. I like the subtlety of this animation, the small movements of the eyes, small pieces of follow through and movement, which are picked up because the camera is so close in. I'm not so keen on when the guy falls backwards, I think the timing is wrong somewhere. There's also a bit in the middle where the expression could be stronger, and the animation a little tighter. It took a week to do, but at 28 seconds long it overran and meant I had to put alot of work in to complete it in time.
 
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Motorbike Boy (1.97 mb)
An exercise in body language, which works quite well. In some place I think the timing is a bit behind what it should be. Another week long project.
 
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Cat Running (695 kb)
After observing and drawing all sorts of 4 legged creatures at the London Zoo I plumped for the common or garden cat. This took a week to do, and I think it's an ok 2D animation, it also works ok as a loop - it's too easy to get noticeable "clicks" in short walk / run / animation cycle.
 
right click to "save target as" Fish Swimming (967 kb)
After observing and drawing fish at the London Aquarium we were given a couple of days to animate one.
I exaggerated its flex - a fish of its shape would normally not flex so much, but I do like it the way it is - the animation feels fluid and there is a wateryness to it as well. I'm not 100% keen on the bit where the fish comes towards the camera, but overall I think this is a good animation.
 

Due to my bandwith constraints all the videos here are small and quite compressed. The contact page has details of showreels that I can send out to interested parties.All animation created Oct 04 - March 06.
All videos use Cinepak Codec by Radius.