Ref / Inspiration

This is a somewhat unusual post for me, but I thought I'd spare the time to share one of my recent favourite pieces of animation.

It's the advertising campaign for Nike when they sponsored the Brazil World Cup for 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy1rumvo9

Honestly, football really isn't my thing. I just about manage to watch a couple of England games every 4 years. But I absolutely, categorically LOVE this animation.

I guess it just goes to show that although FIFA is an abominable organisation (so I'm told), and Nike are a soulless, aggressive corporate machine, you can not deny their ability to throw seemingly limitless amounts of revenue at ad campaigns such as this, and create something brilliant.

There's many things I love about it, and all the elements come together perfectly. Everything from the sublime animation, the lovingly crafted characters, the sense of fun, the use of light, music, original and interesting angles, rewatchability, and the fluidity of the storytelling.

I guess that's what stands out the most for me, in that they have managed to weave a captivating narrative over just 5 minutes when many Hollywood studios would have overcooked it for 90. It's storytelling in a way that no other medium can match.

I've decided that I'm going to start a playlist on my youtube channel titled 'References / Inspiration' for whenever I get a drawing block. I'll try and add useful content as and when I find any. Check it oot here - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnhvXo8o5RktsOP4GqJHERoIxUEHt2Qph

Plenty more new coming! Stay tuned in

Ripple of news

Something big is coming, hold tight devoted followers. 

I haven't given any updates in too long, and I don't really have enough time to now, but a huge project that I've been involved with for months Is finally on its last lap. I'll give a more detailed bio of the project when it drops.

Here's a typical snapshot of what my life has been like for the past few days / weeks / months. 

Not much longer now ! x

Animation detention

I felt like mixing it up today and doing some animation practise from the Animator Island '51 animation exercises to master' -

Http://www.animatorisland.com/51-animation-exercises-to-master/

This was a break from my usual paid work, but it definitely felt good to go over old ground and refine my understanding of some animation fundamentals. It feels good to instinctively know the 'right' way to go about approaching a animation sequence from a technical standpoint. 

Check it out here -

http://www.swfcabin.com/open/1401212012

If I can budget my time properly I'd love to have a crack at some level 2-4 exercises :) 

Apart form that, progress on all my other projects has been good :) watch dis space !

Monster

I've been a little quiet lately, so here's a something to I've been working on this week to wet your appetite.

It's a monster that will appear dominantly in a music video I'm working on for a Scandinavian band. Realistically the whole thing should be done in a month and a bit, depending on how many mental breakdowns I have.

take care ! Live long and prolapse

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/f68ecaf3fd21f46259636169ca72f5b7

New website

http://samw.co.uk/

Go forth and Czech it out you filthy pagans!

Erm. Shtuff

I've been busy being continually and incessantly breathing. Here's a foul excuse for an update for what I've been doing in an easily accessible visual medium.

And here's some old shading experiment doodles that gives the illusion that I am working now

 

Inspiration

I stumbled across this gem, although the content is a little old now it's a hugely motivating documentary showcasing the sheer effort, skill and sleepless nights that go into making an animated movie. It also shows just how highly competitive the industry is. 

This is for myself first and foremost. I hope that I find the time to rewatch this periodically in the future.

New work coming soon ;)

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a-5Bs9IfCp4

March update

I've been a little late updating this blog I know, but here's my latest animation project that you definitely need to watch right now, it's called - Birdsong Gunshots

Check it out here - http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/635027

For once I'm actually very pleased with how this turned out, and although I hope that I will always say this about my most recent project, but I think it's the best one I've done.

I have a list of things, techniques, and principles that I have picked up from animation books, youtube videos and lectures from senior animators that I am trying to self-teach myself, and I got to tick off a heap of them during this animation.

One of these was experimenting with a Stephen Silver concept (lead animator on Kim Possible) of using a combination of smooth curves with straight lines in character design. It seems to give the drawing a little more appeal. Especially with the first bird (pictured) I tried to keep my idea sketches loose and play around with pulling out the shape.

I also managed to use a 'gradient background' for the first time, which is a simple way to make the backgrounds more interesting. And in the footsteps of some of the best old-school animators ie. the nine old men and the reams of classic 50s animations, I animated with a classical soundtrack.

I specifically tried to get all this done on time before Tuesday the 4th of this month, because it was my plan to go down to London and showcase this movie at the London Animation Club, but sadly I made the trip down there and they didn't have the time at the end to show it. But I still managed to take a lot away from the speakers, and I really enjoyed chatting to and networking with other people who are serious about animation.

And I've got a new pc now.

Still alive

I finally got round to learning rigging while working a quick project for gogy.com

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/5a14add0962c132cbf9dfca312d44dbe

More things and stuff and  things coming soon stay tooned plebeians

Slackman

Here's something that's been sitting grumpily on my hard drive for a while - SLACKMAN. Go czech it out on newgrounds you slob. 

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/633775

One of my New Years resolutions was to get out a personal animation each month ontop of all my paid commissions, I realise this is a bit late but in my defence I've been on holiday this weekend, and this was a 5 minute juggernaut of a project. It was something that I would rather take the extra time and effort to finish properly rather than rush it and move onto a smaller project. 

I learnt a huge amount while doing this, and I guess that is the payoff I get for a project I'm not 100% happy with. I learnt how to use scenes, how to mask, and the importance of storyboaring and not just launching yourself head first into a animation without having a clear idea of where it's going. This cost me about 30 seconds worth of hard animation because I realised at the end that it was dead weight.

I've got plenty of other work in the pipeline, and once I've got the nod from my clients I'll probably throw them up on here. As usual always assume that no news is good news, and if this blog goes quiet for a few weeks it means that I'm working on something special.

I'm on episode 3 /12 of a webseries that will likely launch sometime next month, plus a handful of smaller short projects. Keep tuned in.

Peace 

* update 11/02/14

The response for this way awesome, and I managed to get daily 5th place on newgrounds which means a lot to me considering the amount if my youth I invested in that site, and it's amazing history of spring boarding homemade animating legends like david firth, weebl&bob, oney, egoraptor etc.

I'm so glad to have this response to a an animation that i know isn't my best work, and that I was close to not even putting up online. 

Bitter update news

I'm was very wary of this already, but I guess it was always going to happen to me at some point being a freelancer. But I got stung.

Over the past few days I've been investing a lot of time and effort working on some designs for a cul-de-sac of a animation project. There were early warning signs that I probably over looked, like when the agent consulting with me wouldn't give me the name of the agency he represented, the way his accounts were new and without any traceable content, and the unprofessional way in which he was discussing the work program.

Basically he kept asking for re-designs, and was very shifty about the process of payment. I think in the end he said that he wanted me to flat out copy / trace the design from another artist's artwork. So I decided to call it a day at that point and not waste any more time on it.

I had a lot of fun doing the drawings regardless, I had the chance to mess around with a complete mix of different styles, and  I thought it was a shame to waste them so I decided to throw them up on here.

2 thousand no hundred and 14

As always assume that no news is good news. I've been happily busy since my last post, and I've set myself a few goals for the new year, one of those being to churn out at least one project a month on-top of all my other paid commissioned animations.

I've landed a job working alongside a great sound editing guy from the UK, and together we're going to be working on a 12 episode web-series which will hopefully get started this month, I'm already about 80% done with the first episode. This is going to be a big project for me, and a nice ongoing job that should last at a few months. Keep an eye open for that :)

I've also been working on putting together a 2013 showreel, I'll be posting that up here once it's done.

Other vague ambiguous promises of work in the pipeline include getting my website pretty and functioning this month, at the moment, let's face it, it's minimal bordering on Ikea - samw.co.uk

Aaaaand a project that I worked on last month has finally come online, this was a university project that I worked on with a bunch of people from Santiago, Chile. It was a lot of fun to work on, and I feel like the final production turned out great. I'd say this was my favorite job of 2013.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9rgA1dUhZLZOVBMOFpxb0g5YW8/edit?usp=sharing