Keeping Busy

Monkey Monitor from Frankie Swan on Vimeo.

Client: Monkey Monitor

I was commissioned by Ubiquity Comms to create an animation to explain what the software monkey monitor does, without the luxury of a voice over. 

A tight four week project where i had to come up with the concept, design and sfx, also animate composite and direct! but got the job done phew.

Luckily I had help from these lovely and talented people:

music: Rafael Baldwin- rafael.baldwin@rcm.ac.uk

assistant animation:

Hannah Lau-Walker 

Chris Wilder 

The client received a slightly different version (i preferred the top one): 

Character Designs

(above image by Wesley Louis)  

A couple of weeks ago i asked my mentors and friends Kristian and Wes if they wouldn't mind giving me some guidance and pointers on character design (check there blogs they are both unbelievably good artists). I gave them a copy of my Breca design (a couple of posts down) and asked how they would approach developing him further and also how they approach character design in general. I was enlighten by their feedback and below are some rough biro sketches where i tried to apply some of there suggestions. 

By allowing them access to my work i learned a lot more about design principles and it also clearly highlighted some the mistakes i was making, mistakes which had me frustrated but ones only a fresh pair of eyes could point out. 

Still rough and no way near ideal but hopefully they can see some improvements. 

I also got carried away and thumbnailed a short animation idea for Breca:

This isn't the first time the guys have helped me in this way and i hope it wont be the last. thanks again!

more explorations to come!

More Learning

Only have time to share some more sketches as i am still working away on another project. The top five were done while watching a famous animation (someone please guess what animation, if its not obvious then i still suk!) I pushed myself to draw quickly to try and capture what i saw appear on the screen. I mainly tried to focus on character and expressions. Was a fun task and I think i will make it a rule to watch TV with my pad at the ready. Stanchfield does suggest this in his books, dunno why it took me so long to actually do it- being too lazy i guess. 

on another note to myself, i really should break away from making to many/ hairy lines, shows I'm not thinking enough when i draw.