Me and My Shadow

DreamWorks released the poster today for the upcoming movie, Me and My Shadow which I am working on as a 2D and CG Animator. 

The movie is really unique where it mixes CG animation and environments with a 2D animated shadow. Its been so cool seeing 2D pencil tests in dailies at the moment and there are some amazing animators working on the film. 

More details can be found out the Me and My Shadow facebook page.

Dream Job

Recently a dream of mine came true.

When I was 10 I saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit in the cinema... five times! To say it had an effect on me is a bit of an understatement. It was at the very moment when Roger walked off the cartoon set and into the real world that I knew what I wanted to spend my life doing; being an animator for feature films.

Since then it has been a long and wonderful journey of working at Disney Consumer Products, running my own animation company developing TV shows for with Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon and then attending the online school, Animation Mentor (which I believe is hands down the best place to learn animation anywhere).

It was at Animation Mentor that I was lucky enough to be taught by some of the greats currently working in feature animation today. Passionate teachers like Sean Sexton at DreamWorks, Victor Navone at Pixar and Drew Adams at DreamWorks who added even more desire fuel to achieve my goals!

More recently a film had the same effect on me that Roger Rabbit had all those years ago, How To Train Your Dragon. When Hiccup rises up into the clouds on the back of Toothless I knew where I had to apply this craft that I had been working so hard to learn, at DreamWorks.

But I never imagined the amazing mentors and friends that I would make at Animation Mentor. These incredible people included Sean Sexton, Drew Adams, David Weatherly, Ron Pucherelli and Simon Otto. It was through their belief and support in me that I was able to get an interview with DreamWorks and I will be forever grateful.

The interview process was intimidating and extremely exciting. It was also very fitting that my first interview was with James Baxter - an animation god who just so happened to work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit!

I leave Australia on July 2nd to move to LA and will start working at a studio that to me is best described in the words from the wonderful movie, Hugo: "If you've ever wondered where your dreams come from when you go to sleep at night, just look around. This is where they are made."

I can't wait to start.

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

I'm a huge fan of Disney's 1949 animated feature (their 11th), The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. It is made up of two different segments based on The Wind in the Willows and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and both have fantastic animation in them.

Below is a selection of drawings from the film along with a pencil test which I put together from the frames found in Frank and Ollie's 'Illusion of Life' book.

And the final shot as seen in the film:

Another big post coming early in the week on getting the face to look more fleshy in CG animation. I also have a whole bunch of awesome pencil tests which I have been analysing which I will start posting soon.