For the Arthouse Crowd

I'm chin-deep in Encounters festival coverage this week, so here's a special cultural treat for you - the entire series of Wobble Box (so far and with the odd exception of episode 5) en français! 
Mais oui!
Eez it not très belle?

If all the above awesomeness is too much to handle here are a couple of bits I animated on their lonesome:

Roundup

With this year barreling by at a scrotum-tighteningly terrifying speed, I keep falling behind with the whole blogging thang. Currently my existence is an impenetrable soup of what's happened/what hasn't, what's online/what's not, what's public/what's private etc, so it can all get away from me a bit. I'm gonna be 30 in a few seconds so give me a break.
There've been a few HuHa! updates in the last couple months worth rounding up. Firstly the plucky Assassinen Babies (as they're known in Germany) make an appearance on their own in a standalone version of their debut skit. Those who speak the language will gather from the comments that its whimsical subtlety didn't play quite as well to the German YouTube crowd.

There's also the French version, Bébés Assassins. Good god, it's like Muzzy up in here.

To an altogether more positive reception here on their home turf, the English Assassin Babies made their thrilling return to Wobble Box in episode 6. Who knows what peril and adventure they'll face this time around? Find out below (around 2:13 in)!

Here are a few yummy mummies I sketched for it. These are all loosely based on some real-life new mothers I know. From what little time I've spend with their respective young'uns I expect they're just as effective in a combat situation.

 Two more skits I did the visuals for show up in episode 8 which went up today. Starting with High Seas which is a fun, concentrated 15 seconds of swashbuckling that was a joy to design.

I liked how this one came out so much I took the assets and made an illustration piece out of it. What an onanistic delight I am:

Secondly is High Winds. That's wordplay humour, son, let it wash over you. Like the pirate one, this was quite simplistically animated with some special sauce courtesy of After Effects.
The skits show up at 0:36 and 1:53 respectively, but why not go ahead and watch the whole ep? It's only wee, sure it is.

There's also a more recent episode of Fantasy Office, which saw me charged with designing some 'Salesman D-bags'. The main antagonist was loosely modeled on Michael Douglas in Wall Street.

Check out the full episode here:


Also, as I don't want to leave what I'm certain is a monstrously high percentage of this blog's readers who live in France hanging, you can watch the French translation L'Office de la Fantaisie episodes 2 and 3 below:




Hourra!!

Ben Mitchell's Very Public Emotional Breakdown

It's new Skwigly podcast day, folks - that wunnerfull time o' the month where myself and Steve bring you some insight from the animation world's notable practitioners, sort of held together with our meandering wafflage in between. Everyone listen or risk societal shunning!

Insight-wise I got to talk to Richard Starzak, formerly Richard Goleszowski, known to most as Golly. He's currently the creative director at Aardman and has headed up "Rex The Runt", "Robbie The Reindeer" and presently "Shaun The Sheep", all of which - despite the title similarities - are separate endeavours. He also directed the "Creature Comforts" TV series, developed from the famous Nick Park short of the same name, as well as his own film "Ident" which is probably my favourite 'classic' Aardman short alongside Barry Purves's "Next".

Later on Steve chats to Daniel Greaves of Tandem Films, whose work includes the Oscar-winning "Manipulation", an early-90s take on the "Duck Amuck" character-vs-creator concept, as well as "Flatworld", "Little Things" and the in-progress "Mr. Plastimime".
Wafflage-wise, we discuss recent developments with the VFX debate, merrily gambol down memory lane and I rant psychotically about a recent nightmare commission. Hopefully we can get some listener stories of their own horrendous experiences dealing with clueless clients. It's good to vent.

Meanwhile, somewhere in my happy place, I've learned that HuHa! has been translated into German and French. Best I can tell only the German version of Wobble Box Episode 1 is up now, so treat yourself to the delights of "Assassinen Babies". It's like "Assassin Babies", just German-ier.

Now I can finally get the folder labeled "AssBabies" off my HD before the feds come knockin'...

I'm briefly emerging from the subterranean land of Worst-Flu-Ever-meets-Most-Stressful-Deadline-Ever to provide some quick cartoonery to ram into your adorable faceholes.
This was a fun little between-commissions commission for one of YouTube's original content channels FlipTV (they who host Carpool, David Mitchell's Soapbox, Simon's Cat and...possibly others) whose latest sub-channel HuHa! is being headed up by Jonti Picking and Sarah Darling of Weebl's Stuff. Basically it's a way to get out a bunch of animated webisodes and original content to that oh-so-cynical of crowds: The YouTube audience. But so far the response has been very strong. Weebl is already a pretty established name as far as online animation goes so them's some fine coattails to ride.
My first contribution is the mini-skit "Assassin Babies" for the debut episode of their sketch show "Wobble Box". It was written by Sarah Darling while I took on all the visual stuff - character designs, storyboards, animation etc. They also wound up using what I'd thought would be a placeholder audio track so the sound and voice is me too. What a little showoff I am.
You can watch episode 1 of "Wobble Box" right here. My bit's around 23 seconds in. Other bits I didn't do but am rather fond of include "Unrealistic Dog" and "Mr. Bubblehead".
Here's some development scribbles and whatnot:

First character concepts. I was very relieved they preferred the top batch.

Character sketches for layouts

Character sketches for keyframes

Background Design 1

Background Design 2

Knock wood when I get my evenings and weekends back I can do more for HuHa! I have a particular fondness for anything named after any inexplicable noise Al Pacino's been known to make.