I'll take the high road from factory to factory

This week we've been doing some stop motion work, using the green screen studio at Factory in Manchester. I am pleased to say that I didn't mess up the oil pastel animation - well there's a bit of a funny bump, but we've decided it is part of the charm! We've been doing lots of paper cut out animation too, and some experiments with a strobe light which we are very pleased with.

Does this drawing here look scary to you? I hope it does at least a little.

I recollect the violence of the struggle

Here's another linetest from the new film...

We did this in TV Paint and comped it in After Effects. It's not done - definitely not done - but the main animation is.

An empty space to fill in

Still working on the new film, and here is a nice oil pastel drawing from it. We've decided to do a couple of sequences hand drawn with oil pastel. I've not finished the first sequence yet, but I think I'm going to need to buy some more pastels! I had forgotten how long it takes colouring by hand onto paper. The last time I did this was for my graduation film... It's straight-ahead rather than keyframe animation because I'm drawing straight into an old, found book. Hope I don't mess it up...

And here's Emily!

She's cutting out and making a paper model in this picture. Using her magic powers, Emily then makes the paper model actually glow...

Amazing. What will the paper models be in the film? They will be mountains of course.

Now I'm all in a muddle

In frankly awesome news, Muddle Earth, which I animated on last year, has been nominated for a BAFTA! It's up for a Children's Award in Animation. Wow wow wow! Congratulations to Sarah Muller, Phil Chalk, Vinnie James and everyone else who made Muddle Earth so ace to work on. Hope we win!!!

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out

Some new film artwork...it's the moon...

I'm a festival, I'm a parade

Emily and I are back back back from Anim'est in Romania, and it was great! We saw so many good films, and met many nice and friendly animators. We also ate pig fat, which is apparently part of the Romanian cuisine. We also stroked a stray dog. We also saw lots of cool sights in Bucharest, including lots of Orthodox churches, and some very pretty cobbled streets with bars and boutiques. We both really enjoyed ourselves, and everyone at Anim'est was so welcoming and kind. It was brilliant! I hope we get to go back some day.

As I mentioned, we saw some great animations, and here are a few of our favourites...

A Morning Stroll from Studio AKA:

Out Of A Forest by Tobias Gundorff Boesen (one of our new friends, and what great music taste...):

And also Overcast by Velislav Kazakov, who was in our screening, and was also very lovely to meet. You can see his animation here.

Thanks again to all at Anim'est for looking after us. Good luck with the festival for next year, and I hope we'll be back!

I think last night you were driving circles around me

Some new film artwork: