Curlymation

New showreel

2012-01-12T11:50:00.002Z

After several years I've finally got round to updating my showreel. I'm not looking for a new job, well not unless they kick me out, but I just want to keep on top of it because it's hard to get hold of each clip the longer I leave it.

Twismas

2012-01-04T09:02:00.003Z

We finished these idents a few weeks before Christmas. They were done for the Canadian family channel and were great fun to work on. As usual the deadlines were pretty tight, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I started work on a short film a few months back too with a work colleague. I've somehow managed to build and rig two of the characters and hope to do some animation testing when I have time. I'll put stuff up here if it looks any good...

Movember

2011-11-24T10:00:00.002Z

A bunch of us at work are spending the month trying to look as ridiculous as possible by growing phenomenal looking moustaches for charity. Ashley Boddy has even set up a blog to document the month.

http://www.aardmo.blogspot.com/

While I may think I look cool in a Windsor Davies/Tom Selleck kind of way, my wife summed it up more elequently the other day by saying I looked like a total pr@$k. Nice.

If anyone fancies donating they can do so by following the link at the top of the AardMo blog.

Aardman feature films

2011-07-15T16:46:00.002Z

They've just released a couple of trailers for Aardman's up and coming features. Not too shabby eh!

Finished shot

2011-06-30T15:03:00.004Z

I've had a bit of time to finish that shot. I'm going to try and film some real footage while driving and stick it outside the window, but in the meantime, the crap cube and cylinder looping will have to do.

I should also mention that the rig is one I downloaded from the internet. It's Morpheus by Josh Burton and you can download it here

No solids!...

2011-06-10T13:54:00.002Z

Recently started on a new acting shot. I've had the audio for a while so finally decided to do something with it. Eventually there'll obviously be a lot more passengers on the bus but hopefully this gets the idea across. I've changed a few bits and pieces from the version I had at the start of the week thanks to feedback from a mate in work. Nice one John!

Sergio Pablos talks animation

2011-06-02T14:41:00.002Z

Adam "The King" King sent me this link earlier. It's a very interesting talk given by Sergio Pablos about how he pitches feature film ideas to studios. I had the great pleasure to have him teach me animation for 3 months as part of AM and I learn't a hell of a lot. He's a top bloke!

Sergio Pablos Talks About Animation from Creative Talent Network on Vimeo.

West Plus advert

2011-04-27T13:40:00.002Z

Here's a commercial we finished recently. Joey Brown animated the time lapse shot and I animated the rest. As usual, we had to go like stink to get it done to a very tight schedule.

Chevron commercial

2011-04-12T14:28:00.002Z

Here's a Chevron commercial I animated a few months back which was directed by Darren Robbie. I enjoy doing these because you get to do a fair bit or character acting, plus those cars are really nice and expressive to animate!

20th Century Fox

2011-04-12T14:06:00.001Z

This went round work last week and its the funniest thing I've seen in ages. Awesome.

C is for Cookie!!!!!

2011-03-09T15:36:00.003Z

Here's another personal shot I animated last year but has just recently been rendered. I'd had the sound clip for several years and hid it away until I had the time to animate to it. This was a lot of fun to do and I could quite happily spend the rest of my days animating nonsense like this to music! For those who don't know who the Cookie monster is...for shame!

I've been working on some other stuff with a work colleague during my downtime and I hope to show that sometime soon too.

Laters.

DigitAl ad

2010-12-14T15:56:00.001Z

Here's another one we finished up a few months back. As usual, I only did the animation.

Commercial work

2010-11-29T16:32:00.004Z

Below are a bunch of commercials I've done over the last year. To clarify, I animated the sheep only. Donald Trump was mocapped...

This is an ad for BT. I animated the hedgehog and the leaves with text on them. Will Miller animated the rest.

I also did a bit of work on the Nokia "Dot" commercial. It's a stop-frame job but a few of us in the CGI department did a bit of initial work with the character prior to the 3D printing.

Cheerios!!!! Ooooooooooo!!

I've done a lot more than this and as soon as I'm able I'll post them up.

2010-08-02T16:17:00.003Z

Below are a couple of personal shots I've managed to do in my downtime at work. I've done a lot more stuff over the last year but a I can't show a lot of it for copyright reasons. Actually, I'm beginning to wonder why I did those particular ones in the first place!! Anyway, there's a tiny bit of swearing in there so you've been warned.

I did the animation only. The rigs are from Aardman and the lighting, compositing etc was done by Andy Lavery.

It's been a while...

2010-02-11T11:02:00.005Z

I'm shockingly bad at keeping this thing updated, but my life is a bit hectic with work, babies and moving house stuff, but I will try to post some animation up when I can.

So below is a short test I did a few weeks back. I animated it and the visual guru in work, Andy Lavery, made it look pretty. Since the character has no arms it was a good exercise in trying to get his attitude across purely with the torso and head. I highly recommend giving it a go!

Talking of work, I'm still at Aardman and its going well. There are so many people who are at the top of their game here its ridiculous. Richard Williams works here too, not for Aardman but on his own project and it still makes me chuckle that I see him everyday in the canteen. A while back we watched his Animation Survival kit DVD's during our lunch breaks and we'd sometimes end up sitting with the man himself for lunch and chat about the whole thing.

Anyways, below is that animation I did a few weeks back.

2009......So far so good.

2009-08-19T09:32:00.009Z

2009 has been a pretty god year so far. Our second son was born in July and he's a cracker, and I'd forgotten how flamin tiring new born babies were....man alive I don't do sleep deprivation!

Then on the job front, I'm still at Aardman Animation and it looks like I'll be here for a good while again. This is a cool place to work with a lot of seriously talented people. During my time here I've also been lucky enough to get a tour of some Wallace and Gromit sets as well as hold the little blighters (Wallace anyway. I would have made a break for it with one of the models, but the security is pretty tight and the thought of getting beaten with rubber hoses round the back of the bike sheds made me think again. I also had a tour of the stop-motion features modelmaking workshop, I saw some maquettes for the new "Pirates!" feature which looked amazing.

More recently I've had the chance to work on another personal shot which you can watch below. I wanted to try a pantomime shot this time for a change and tried something with an obvious emotional change. As you can see I have an extremely intellectual sense of humour......

Update...

2009-04-09T10:58:00.004Z

I might have to knock this blog on the head because the frequency of my posting is shocking!!

Anyways, the reason being I've been very busy working since last year.

For a few months over Christmas I was working remotely on some game cinematics for a new game thats coming out called Squeeballs. Yesterday I came across the trailer for the game (there's a link to it below). I pretty much animated the whole thing apart from some changes that were done in-house and I reckon it looks cool. I think it's the first game for a new XBox 360 handheld type controller jobby similar to the Wii one.

SQUEEBALLS TRAILER

And at the moment I'm working at Aardman's CGI commercials department. This is a cool place to work, especially in their shiny new building!! I'm going to be here for a few months and as always I'm really enjoying it.

Oh, one more thing. I recently entered the Spline Doctors Christian Bale animation challenge and got an honourary mention for my efforts!! Happy days. You can watch it below, but be warned........that Bale fella swears like an effing trooper!!

About time I said something...

2009-02-26T15:28:00.004Z

The frequency I'm posting on this thing is awesome! I reckon I'll have the next installment up here by 2010.

Anyway, below is a link to a commercial I did a while ago now. It's the only thing I've got to show at present. When you study animation, the first thing they teach you is to animate bouncing balls, once that's done you figure you'll never need to do that again. How wrong could I have been.T his particular job was all bouncing balls, and pretty much every other thing I've animated has needed what I learn't bouncing those balls applied to it. Anyway I digress....

I will have a load more stuff to show soon enough though. I've started working on a new personal acting shot and I'll also put some stuff up from a BBC children's series I worked on last year called "Grandpa in My Pocket".

Again, sorry mam for not posting anything in a while, I've been flat out busy and spending my free time getting jumped on by my 3 year old son.....

You can watch the commercial HERE if you fancy it.

Synchrolux animation blog

2008-07-04T13:35:00.003Z

I came across this blog a few weeks ago, it's by Kevin Koch who's worked as an animator mainly at Dreamworks. It's loaded with amazing information and I've learnt a hell of a lot just by reading through his posts.

The man knows what he's talking about........FACT!

http://www.synchrolux.com/

Animation masterclass!

2008-06-18T08:38:00.003Z

I haven't updated this badboy in a while because I've been busy working and doing family stuff. But I have signed on to go to an animation masterclass in London next month run by Andrew Gordon from Pixar.

Should be good, and I'm looking forward to learning more stuff and also meeting up with an old mate of mine for a few drinky poo's.

It'll also be nice to get to where the action is animation wise, because after a while you can feel sort of "on the ouside looking in", (well I do anyway) if you're not working in London at one of the big VFX places. Anyways, there's a link to the course by clicking on the title of this post if anyone wants more info about it.

Finished shot.

2008-04-23T14:46:00.003Z

After having a few comments back from "The King", I made some changes and rendered the thing out. The final version is below. His main comment was that the first robot felt really light when it got shoulder barged, so I've hopefully fixed that problem.

Smash 'n' Grab!!!

2008-04-17T14:34:00.005Z

After saying I'd take a break and not start another personal shot, I only went and saw a cool rig online and decided to do something with it. The rig is of a....how you say "gentleman of large stature", and I thought i't be a different challenge to animating my usual skinny fellas.

I've got some time off between jobs anyway so its either watch Loose Women on ITV or animate something (and then go down and watch Loose Women while having dinner). Thats called multi-tasking that is.....

Anyway thanks to Anders Fray for making the rig, you can get it from his site below.

http://www.andersfray.com/

And thanks to Jessica Lauren Spence and Joe treu for the robot rig. You can get that from the link below.

http://www.3dfiggins.com/gallery.php?id=38&item=67#67

As for the animation, after doing acting shots recently I wanted to do something a bit more dynamic and physical. I also wanted to mess about with animating the camera in a steady-cam type of way. This is just the playblast and I still need to animate the bloke's face but its more or less there now. Once that's done I'll render it out nice and purdy like too.....

I'm definately taking a break from doing my personal stuff now. Summer is coming and its time to spend my time doing barbeque's and drinking beer.

As always all comments are more than welcome.

Finished Drunk shot

2008-04-08T08:59:00.001Z

Here's the finished version. I jazzed it up with some pretty colours and stuff.

Drunk shot refined

2008-04-03T13:13:00.003Z

I've had some time off recently so I wanted to finish this shot off. I've been working on it on and off for ages, most of the time I could only grab a half hour here and there to get onto it so I've struggled with getting my brain back into it. Anyways, below is the animation, I think I still need to tweak some stuff, but its more or less done.

Refining.

2008-02-22T15:49:00.002Z

I've started refining this now, there's still lots to do but I'm getting there.

Drunk again...

2008-02-20T13:31:00.002Z

Here's a revision of the blocking for this shot. I've had some very useful comments and ended up making some big changes. I basically wanted this guy to come across as a bit of a smug "they'll never learn will they" kind of twat. So hopefully the changes sort of make him feel a bit more like that. I didn't have to delve too deep to find this character, I see him everyday when I look in the mirror hehe...

Only messing of course.

I'll put a more refined version up here soon.

Drunk as a skunk!!

2008-01-28T13:35:00.000Z

Since I've got some more time off I started another acting shot. This is the basic 1st pass of blocking, but hopefully I've got enough in there to get the message across. All comments are welcome, since I'd rather change it now then later.

Cheers,

Mat.

Wolf Attack!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-01-21T15:21:00.000Z

I've just finished this shot in my spare time, it isn't rendered yet, but it no doubt will be within the next couple of days. I wanted to have a crack at some realistic stuff instead of the usual cartoony ones I do. I also wanted to show off my modelling skills. I think we'd all agree that the set I built is outstanding. The rigs I got online...........

Cheers.

I'm still alive....

2008-01-16T11:10:00.000Z

I haven't posted anything up here for a while, but hopefully withing the next week I'll put up some new stuff I've been doing. I recently finished a stint at Aardman so I'll try and get that piece up here, and I'm also trying to animate a shot in my own time of a (hopefully) realistic wolf doing a bit of jiggery pokery.

I figure almost all my stuff is quite cartoony so I wanted to have a crack at something a bit more real looking...

Oh mam....since you're the only one who looks at this site, I'll phone you after...

Over and out.

Cool Batman animated short.

2007-09-21T09:04:00.000Z

I came across this short film in 3D World magazine and it's a cracker. It was made by a Spanish animator called Isaak Fernandez Rodriguez. I like everything about it from the character design and animation, set design, composition, style etc......all very nice. The way Batman goes from extremely fast action to complete stillnes when he's prowling is really cool. I'm looking forward to future installments.

http://www.animwatch.com/Spotlight-BatmanHelpMe.php

Another acting shot.

2007-09-13T07:36:00.000Z

It's been a while since I posted anything, but I just finished an acting piece which you can watch below. The dialogue is from "Ed Wood" and it was initially intended for the August "Strut your reel" animation competition but I didn't have enough time to finish it then, so I blitzed the sucker this week to get it done. All crits are welcome.

Film on hold

2007-08-08T15:00:00.000Z

I havent posted anything for a long time mainly because I've been very busy. So much so that I've decided to put my film on hold. Another reason is that I'm not happy with the story, and don't really fancy spending months on end animating something I don't like. I do intend coming back to it though, so in the meantime I'm going to try and animate some short dialogue tests and pantomime stuff just to keep me loosey goosey. Jubbly.

Short Film

2007-02-19T21:33:00.000Z

After thinking about it for a while, I've decided to have a crack at making a short film. When I say short I mean short because I really want to get it finished before my son goes to college and he's just turned one so time is already against me.

It's probably going to take a while because I really want to have a crack at doing everything myself, and since my modeling skills are currently limited to making cubes and spheres, allbeit nice ones, and my rigging skills are non-existent, I can't see me starting animating for a year or six.

In time I'll stick some images and stuff up here for all to see.

Stick a fork in me ...I'm done!

2007-01-18T20:24:00.000Z

After making a few alterations after getting some additional feedback off a few people, I reckon I'm done with this shot so I've rendered it out as pretty as I can and stuck it below.

Thanks to all who helped and I'll no doubt be starting another one soon and probably want more help with that...

Happy days!! I finished it!...

2007-01-16T10:52:00.000Z

After what feels like months of trying to grab a few hours here and there to work on this shot I think I've finally finished it. I intend rendering it out all nice and pretty (I'm not that hot on lighting so "pretty" might not be an accurate description) but as far as the animation goes.......I'm done.

I'll leave it a few weeks then I'll probably start working on something else.

New demoreel

2006-12-08T11:15:00.000Z

I've updated my demoreel in the hope of finding some work. You can watch it on my website, there's a link to it on the right. The picture quality isn't ideal but I wanted to get the file size as small as possible without it looking really bad.

All comments, good or bad are welcome.

Aardman short.

2006-11-15T14:07:00.000Z

I had a great opportunity a while back to work on a short film at Aardman. Below are the sequences I worked on. I animated everything apart from the swaying leaves in the fore and background, those are live action.

I'm not sure that I'd be allowed to put the whole short up so its not going to make much sense. I had a cracking time there (cracking....get it!) and I hope it'll be the first of many opportunities I have of working there.

Oh, it was a short for the Wildscreen Festival 2006.

Cheers.

I'll be putting up an update of my acting shot soon, I havent had much chance lately but now I've got more time to work on it.

Started refining.

2006-10-24T15:39:00.000Z

I've started refining the animation now. As you can see I've only been working on the greeh headed fella. So far I havent touched the fingers or facial stuff. I need to do more work on the body in general but again you get the idea. Let me know of any glaring mistakes!

I'll keep posting updates every couple of years because with the time I have to do it, its going to take a while.

Aaaaaaaaaaannnnd.....another update...

2006-10-11T09:57:00.000Z

Ok, I've tried to incorporate the suggestions I've received into the shot. I feel it works a lot better now, especially with the green guy.

I've also changed the pose the brown guy hits around frame 220, I think its a lot stronger and it conveys the characters slightly startled and freaked out attitude a lot better. I'm now going to move past blocking and start refining this shot so hopefully I'll have some prettier updates next time.

Oh, I've also messed with the timings in some places to hopefully make it flow better.

Update...

2006-10-06T14:07:00.000Z

Ok, I've taken on board the comments I've received and I've tried to incorporate them into this updated version. I made green guy happier at the start as suggested to give him more contrast when he flips. I'm still not entirely happy with the moment he starts getting angry though, but I cant put my finger on it (I hate it when that happens!)

Cheers.

"Crazy!!" acting piece.

2006-10-05T07:54:00.000Z

Ok, thanks to Gar for showing me how to put mov's up here. This piece is still in the blocking stage so I'm not really bothered too much about having to change anything if it'll improve the overall performance. So any comments from my vast army of readers are welcome...

The hardest part for me has been trying to make it feel like the guy with the green head is getting more and more tense leading up to him lashing out. You know how it is, you look at these things for so long you can't see the wood for the trees!

Animation.

2006-10-04T14:06:00.000Z

As soon as I figure out how to put some animation clips up here I'll do it, in the meantime keep reading the post below over and over and over again to pass the time ;)

Enjoy.

It begins.......

2006-10-04T13:30:00.000Z

I've been advised by a good friend of mine that the best way to get my work critiqued online is by creating a Blog and somehow getting the good people of the world to leave their nice comments. Chances are I wont get any but hell, its free and I've got 20 minutes to kill.

So as I've said, this site is to help me improve as an animator, but if I've got some pearls of wisdom I want to share, and I've got the time , I'll be putting some rants here too.......