Category Archives: Animation

The Brilliant World of Tom Gates

For the last six months I’ve been a storyboard artist on The Brilliant World of Tom Gates, working for Wild Child as part of an amazing team. The series is based on Liz Pichon’s bestselling Tom Gates books. The first episodes are now on Sky Kids in the UK, either as part of a SkyContinue reading “The Brilliant World of Tom Gates”

Jonah Music Video

Over the last few months I’ve been working on something really special – something a bit different from anything I’ve made before. Rachel Zylstra, a singer-songwriter based in Edinburgh, asked me to create a music video for one of the tracks on her new album On Faith. You can watch the result below!

CTN Live – It All Began Five Years Ago

Five years ago I was in LA attending the CTN expo as part of an animation industry group from Scotland. Today, as part of CTN Live (sign up now if you haven’t already – it’s free!) we’re having a reunion to discuss the trip and where we are now. It All Began 5 Years Ago:Continue reading “CTN Live – It All Began Five Years Ago”

Kinsey’s Sword Thumbnails

A few years ago I posted some images from a short story I’d written and illustrated. You can view them here if you didn’t see them the first time around! The story follows Kinsey, a young Queen who battles her fears in order to reclaim her sword, her family, and her purpose. Since then I’veContinue reading “Kinsey’s Sword Thumbnails”

Character Sketching – Alameda Slim

Last week’s CTN On Model sketching session featured Jonnathon as Alameda Slim, the villain from Home on the Range. I’ve only seen the film once so I don’t know the character very well. At first I really struggled to figure out how his head connects to his neck! By the end of the event IContinue reading “Character Sketching – Alameda Slim”

Character Sketching – Maleficent

I’ve admired artists who turned their life drawing sketches into characters for years, but though I’ve used my drawings as inspiration for characters I’ve never, until now, drawn a model and drawn a character at the same time. It’s tough. But it’s fun! With so much online at present, I discovered that CTN is runningContinue reading “Character Sketching – Maleficent”

‘Klaus’ Clean Up, Part II

Part I A brief note about some of the terms I use: keys, breakdowns, and inbetweens are names for different drawings in animation. Keys are ‘extreme’ poses that tell the story. Breakdowns show how (slowly, angrily, passionately) the character moves from one key to the next. Inbetweens are ‘in between’ all the others, usually halfwayContinue reading “‘Klaus’ Clean Up, Part II”

‘Klaus’ Clean Up, Part I

Last year I worked as a clean up artist on the Oscar-nominated and BAFTA-winning Klaus. SellOut Animation, based in Edinburgh, worked on scenes outsourced from the main studio, SPA, in Madrid. From May until August I joined the team, cleaning up a variety of shots and characters from throughout the film. It was a steepContinue reading “‘Klaus’ Clean Up, Part I”

Animation Workshops, Summer 2019

For the third year running I’ve taught animation workshops at a creative arts holiday (ages 12-18) over the summer. The last two years I’ve focused on morphing workshops, but I decided to try something a little different this time. I introduced the idea of emotions in characters and how to translate that clearly to anContinue reading “Animation Workshops, Summer 2019”

Life Drawing, 15th January

Katrina modelled at this special ‘animation’ life drawing session with short poses. Normally there are poses from 2 minutes up, but we had several 1 minute poses and (after I begged) some 30 second ones too. We began with a sequence of 1 minute poses. There were several longer poses dotted about through the session.Continue reading “Life Drawing, 15th January”

Morphing Workshops

I led more high school-age animation workshops this year, expanding on the morphing workshop from last year. This time everyone who took part was in complete control of their own piece of animation between their character and the next person’s. Whether the character melts, explodes, shatters, or morphs, this was planned out in thumbnails beforeContinue reading “Morphing Workshops”

Pigeon Crumbs – Animatic

Recently I’ve been working on an storyboard about a pigeon who finds the mother of all crumbs, but discovers eating it isn’t all that simple. Here’s the result! Based on a true story … Sound effects copyright BBC

Animation Workshops

Recently I taught some animation workshops for groups of mainly high school aged children and youth. This is the first time I’ve taught animation in any depth, though I ran one workshop on pixelation a few years ago. My main goal was to give a basic framework for people to think about animation in aContinue reading “Animation Workshops”

Animation Base Camp – Bee

If you haven’t seen my previous storyboards from the Animation Base Camp, you may want to start here or here. The story revolves around odd-couple animals at a therapist’s office. The scene below, featuring a bee, was worked on by several different people throughout the Base Camp. I’d recommend looking at Erin’s version – she’s the oneContinue reading “Animation Base Camp – Bee”