I have been modeling and animating with 3D Studio Max for over twelve years and have spent the last six years in fulltime employment with two multi award winning professional animation studios. Collaboratively I have won one BAFTA and been nominated for another. Since the end of July 2010, I have successfully embarked upon a freelance career.
In that time I have become completely fluent in all matters of modeling, animation, uv mapping, rigging, skinning, lighting and rendering.
I am also fluent in Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects as well as having professional experience of Lightwave and Motion Builder.
At this time, I am currently experimenting with ZBrush and Mudbox as I look to further develop my career path and explore my options.
I have been lucky enough to work on several large animation projects intended for broadcast for high profile clients such as the BBC, SoTV and Channel 4.
Tourists From Mars, shown here, was produced as a 10 minute pilot episode for the BBC to be accompanied by four shorter episodes which cover current affairs topics aimed at 7 - 12 year olds.
As well as producing the bulk of the modeling, I also developed and built the rigs for both characters with Marcia (the tentacled brain in a jar) undergoing a lot of R&D before we finally settled on a solution appropriate to her situation and how she would be animated.
This was an intense project produced by myself and the lead designer. Though we co-animated the pilot episode, I animated the title sequence and all four accompanying shorts in approx. 5 - 6 weeks.
Doctor Who was a privelege to work on and I was heavily involved in it's development.
Initially I recreated the tardis in full as well as building the interior of the diner for the pitch presentation to the BBC (later used in the actual episodes themselves). It was at this time that I created and developed a system for the look and feel of the texture work as we were aiming for a specific style for the shading. From there I went on to produce most of the interior environments and then joined the animation team on episodes 3 thru 7.
With only a handful of us actually working on the entire project under an unrealistically tight schedule (four animators each having to produce six scenes a day) it is unfortunate that something so well crafted and worked on so hard by everyone was so ill received by fans and critics alike. Naturally some of the animation was below par but such time schedules did not even allow for second passes.
Other projects I have worked on include the forthcoming Game Over from SOTV, Rockerz for the BBC and The Mixtape for Channel 4.
My involvement with Game Over only included the first episode before I left the studio. One such scene (above) required me to build, animate, texture and composite additional tentacles into a live action plate which had to be colour matched and corrected to the original prop tentacles.
Unfortunatley, due to the great votings scandal of the BBC where all phone-in competitions were banned, Rockerz never saw the light of day and was scrapped. A lot of work went into that including my development of a bespoke 'cut and paste' animation system using Character Studio.
Thankfully, The Mixtape did make it to air one saturday morning on Channel 4. I rigged and animated all the characters.
In the last six years, the two studios I have worked for have produced many incredibly successful online games, viral campaigns and movie tie-ins for clients such as Paramount Studios, Universal Studios, Bandai, Sony, Sky TV, Channel 4 and the BBC...
The assets I have produced for these games and viral campaigns has been varied and diverse, requiring me to work in conjuction with others, as well as to the wishes of the art director, whilst using 3D Studio Max, Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects in order to maintain a consistent look and feel throughout.
As well as producingwork for such high profile clients, the time I spent at Kerb allowed me the privelege of working with and producing work for both Orbital and Norman Cook.
Piston Junkies was an in-house animation developed over a long period of time inbetween projects that actually paid us money. As disjointed a project as the characters it portrays, the entire short was modeled, rigged, animated, mapped, lit, shaded and rendered by myself with textures and design work by the art director. More a labour of hate than love. Orbital provided the music to accompany the visuals.
My work for Norman Cook involved producing an animation that detailed and profiled his world tour prior to his 2007 New Year Big Beach Boutique where it rained a lot. The animation was displayed on the video walls accompanying his set.
