Old Chestnuts

Happy Monday all!
A few oldies that I worked on have recently resurfaced. Firstly the latest of my old discography to finally make its way to Spotify, iTunes et al is the 2010 EP Digital Stimulation.

This one originally came out in the run up to the LP The Book of Women that would be released at the end of the same year and features six exclusive alternate mixes/edits of songs from that album as well as its 2006 predecessor Agnosticaust (which will hopefully get itself a full reissue soon). Check 'er out:

On the animation side of things I saw that a collection of highlights from Jonti Picking (aka Weebl) and Sarah Darling's webseries Wobble Box went up over the weekend, with a couple of the segments I animated thrown in. So that's something to keep your company on your lunch break:

More good news is that Rumpus Animation's first step into the world of video game adventuring The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle - for which I provided the voices of That Guy Who Sounds Like Ben Mitchell and That Other Guy Who Sounds Like Ben Mitchell But A Bit Nasally among others - will be getting itself a Japanese release on the Nintendo Switch on March 29th, so fingers crossed for a wider release in the not-too-distant. You can learn more about this version here and there's a slightly more Nintendo-ey version of the trailer you can watch below:

Crustaceans and Cephalopods

It's been a little while since the last Channel Flip round-up, so why not treat yourself to some animated frivolity to break up the drudgery of your day, drudgeypants? The latest Wobble Box features some anxious octopi of mine in a skit that comes in around 1:26. Why, that's just enough time for a...

Elsewhere in the HuHa-niverse, a thoughtful tale of office diplomacy, doom holes and crab people. As best I'm aware the red button reveal at the end isn't a Bobby Yeah reference, but I like to pretend it is.

This one largely dealt with pre-existing character designs I didn't come up with, so aside from cobbling it together I'd say my proudest contributions are the mutated, chitinous crab legs. I wanted them to be unsettling in an understated way so elected to have the characters performs squats when standing. Watch, forever:

As with most of my recent HuHa commissions these ones were mainly put together in Toon Boom with a soupçon of After Effects. For the doom hole at the end I revisited an estranged-though-not-forgotten friend, Cinema 4D.

If you're lucky there may even be a sequel. Man alive, what a tease I am.

Yam Handed

You look down in the dumps, old friend. As well you should, if things are so dreary that you've come here of all places for distraction. How about a heapin' helpin' o' HuHa to perk you up, misery-tits?
Episode 9 of Wobble Box went up earlier this week, my wee contributions to which being the deoderant (1:01 in) and escalator (2:09 in) skits.

The former was an entirely Toon Boom affair, including the backgrounds which I kept loose'n'colourful'n'simple.

As per there was a lot of fun design work coupled with minimal animation. Get some sketches down ya:

That last one is for the escalator bit, the assets for which were also done in Toon Boom. I wanted to do something less identifiable as my style and so went with something more cartoon-modern.

The colour approach was thought up on the fly - rather than solid colours I scribbled them in on their own layers on a boil, exporting them separately from the character animation before compositing both with textures in After Effects.

Over in Skwigly land we have a new podcast after yet another unexpected hiatus. There was one scheduled for September but we hit our first genuine snafu when our lead guest inexplicably rescinded permission to be included. First time for everything, I suppose.
Far better sports are Chris Landreth - the Oscar-winning NFB director known for Ryan, The Spine and now Subconscious Password, a wonderfully-relatable tale of a man's inner turmoil as he struggles to recall the name of an old acquaintance he's bumped into at a party - and Chris Shepherd, the chap behind the much-loved shorts Dad's Dead and Who I Am and What I Want among others. Shepherd has recently been involved with 12foot6, Random Acts and Autour de Minuit, the latter for his new live-action/rotoscoped short The Ringer, a genuinely touching father-son tale and one of my favourites from this year's Encounters.

Thrown in the mix are musings on shows like The Simpsons outstaying their welcome, general Encounters chitchat and my usual sanctimonious pontifications on filmmaking. You can do the streaming/subscribing/downloading thang at your leisure and discretion. Whichever option suits you best. There are no judgements here.

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!!

Buon'anima

First off, respect where it's due. RIP Mr. James Gandolfini. I've been in the midst of a massive Sopranos DVD rewatch, boring everyone with how amazingly it still holds up, and truth be told I'm a little shellshocked with this whole business. I'm not an actor but his performances taught me a lot about the power of how to carry oneself, that it's possible to be suave and overweight at the same time; What little game I had in secondary school I owe to my blatant imitations of his onscreen persona. Not only that, he was fucking hilarious. To pick one Sopranos scene that epitomised what he brought to the table would frankly be daft, so instead here's a clip from my favourite of his feature roles opposite Peter Capaldi in Armando Ianucci's In The Loop:
In the spirit of sentiments voiced during the show's multitudinous funeral scenes: "Waddayagonnado?"
On the HuHa! front, here are some sketches for a quick skit that I managed to crowbar in before I left for Annecy:

There really was hardly any time to knock this one out, so the animation's possibly even more limited than usual. That being said, the script gave me a chance to have some fun with the designs and I'm pretty happy with the end result. The only thing I'd maybe have done differently had there been time would be making the 'imagination' backgrounds a little more crazy/detailed.
The full Wobble Box episode it's featured in (second-to-last skit, around 3'35" in) went up this afternoon. Overall I'd say it's one of my favourites:

Riders on the Storm

Yesterday saw episode 4 of "Wobble Box", the Flip/HuHa animated sketch show I do some bits and pieces for go live. Here it is:

I did the animation for the final skit, "Discharge", which was a lot of fun to design. It's a little unfortunate that there wasn't a budget for some proper full animation as I would've loved to go proper Kricfalusian on it.

I'd planned to animate the 'money shot', so to speak, but was urged not to for whatever reason, possibly some YouTube content rule. Maybe by actually showing it it would've been overkill and taken some of the impact away from it, but here's what I'd had in mind:

The other segment I worked on was "23 Hour News", which was good timing as I've been watching a lot of "Powerpuff Girls" of late (as men do) so I was in the right headspace for some city-destroying monsters:

The highlight of this was getting to do the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Again, the budget was small but I came up with a pretty effective cheat, drawing on Eadweard Muybridge's photos of horses in motion:

Muybridge photography: The CliffsNotes of the animation world

Using these for reference I rigged up a rough horse drawing using the After Effects puppet tool. This works a little differently than boning in CG programs or other 2D applications, essentially placing joints on each still drawing of the horse's legs (which occupy their own layer). If placed correctly they can be moved and animated with some approximation to real life. This motion test shows what I came up with - you can tell there were some cartooney liberties taken but it has more or less the desired effect:

Then, using the rough sketch for reference I came to the really fun bit, coming up with detailed drawings of each demonic horse to match their respective horsemen. Then it's just a matter of applying the rigged animation to each design:

Fully composited with separate motion paths and timeline placement, it makes for a nice little payoff visual:

 Something tells me this won't win me much by way of appreciation from the Brony community.

Toonstruck

It's another frightfully busy period o'time for me at the mo so here are a couple of quick updates. Firstly episode 3 of the Channel Flip/HuHa! series "Wobble Box" went up recently if you'd like to show it some love. I may put up some production materials for the bits I did later on down the line but in the meantime see if you can guess which ones they are.

In the physical world, there's another upcoming CineMe event in Bristol this coming Monday (the 22nd). Amongst the fine films being showcased are my patchy little shorts "Ground Running" and "The Naughty List". The screening will be at The Birdcage, one of my preferred new-ish local venues, so that's a nice plus. Come along, why doncha!

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.

Freakin' windy out today, ain't it?

As I mentioned last month, the Frenchtastic folks over at the Roanne Animation Festival have informed me that my film "The Naughty List" will be part of their pre-festival 'Best Of' screenings, having been part of last year's line-up. I just had a look on their website and it seems like said screenings will take place this week at the Jacques Perrin à Tarare cinema on the 13th and the Le Méliès à Saint-Etienne cinema on the 14th, both at 9pm. Très bon, innit?
This year's official selection includes many personal favourites such as Michaela Pavlátová, PES, Francesca Adams, Tim Reckart, Bill Plympton and Rumpus, so if you're one of the 7% of people reading this from France I'd say you'd be a goshdarned fool to not check it out. Pardon my harsh language, there.

I just finished reading/reviewing a superb book on the legendarily troubled production of "Ren & Stimpy", inarguably one of my earliest and strongest influences. Unlike many, I retained a sincere affection for the post-Spumco era of the show and was hoping this book would give the Games era and its crew of talents like Bob Camp, Bill Wray, Chris Reccardi and Lynne Naylor (amongst many others) a fair shake. It does, in spades and with a lot of insightful input from all sides. You can read my full review of "Sick Little Monkeys" by Thad Komorowski over at Skwigly.
There's a new episode of "Wobble Box" over on HuHa!, for which I put together the Dr. Jekyll skit animation (about 2'15" in). The turnaround and budget don't allow for much full animation though I had some fun with the transformation sequence:

As with "Assassin Babies", this is the perfect type of fun, daft project I relish working on, especially as it came on the heels of a particularly wretched and staggeringly unprofessional debacle of a commission which will never be spoken of on here. But hey, getting the odd duff gig is part and parcel of being a freelancer. At the end of the day it makes you appreciate the jobs that go well all the more.

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.