Here comes Kubo.

Well it's finally here folks! The poster for Laika's new film 'Kubo and the Two Strings'. As you may know, I've been given the amazing chance of animating on this film for the last year, and I can't wait for everyone to see it!

Make sure you're online on Friday to catch the trailer. It is to be premiered on Fandango.com and on the youtube channel 'movie clips'. Oh yeah, also, I hear its being played in front of a small film called  'Star Wars' on the 18th of December too!

See ya soon!

Sean

Boom... the L-Bomb... Among other things...

Hello everyone who visits my blog!
I haven't touched this page since finishing Uni! Crazy! That is almost a year! (How is that possible?!)

Any ways, A LOT has happened since my last post, so I'm going to try and update you! Bear with me.
Those of you in the know, know, you know? But meh, I'll tell you anyway!

Basically, I've had a bit of a crazy time since June, I graduated from the University of South Wales with a 1st, and with help from a very kind and generous animator from Aardman, (to which I owe EVERYTHING TO) I got to visit the very studio that has inspired me since an extremely early age.
I got to spend a couple of weeks alongside the professionals that were wrapping up the Shaun the Sheep movie!

Whilst at Aardman, I was situated with the assistant animators. Here, I was set the task of sculpting replacement faces for the Farmer and Bitzer. I then moved on to the test units, where I was given a puppet from The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!
 The brief was simple, just animate a sequence of your own choosing. So like always, I was feeling silly and made a serious serious scientist do a flirtatious dance. 
I won't put up the animation just yet, but here are some stills...

NSFW right. 


 Anyway, Once my time at Aardman was up,  It was on to the next thing, which for me, was:

Wahey! That's right, I got my first animationy job at Rastamouse!

I have to say, that the people making this show are just brilliant. All round just fun. I made some (hopefully) life long friends, and had the best first animation job I could have wished for straight out of Uni. So much fun. Here's the puppet department in our crew t-shirts! Miss you all!

So yeah, whilst working with these furry creatures for couple of months, (the mice, obviously) I set up up a little studio of my own at home, here's a sneaky peek:

Here I did some tests whenever I could, just to keep up the practice. :) 

So, after Rastamouse was all wrapped up and in the bag, I went on to the next venture!

First of all, I had the privilege of travelling to a shiny, brand new Bridgend-based animation studio to pop in to see Mike, Ben, Jody, Sam and all the other great people at Immortal Pictures as they start their amazing journey towards making the new butt-kicking, adrenaline fuelled, action-fest feature film: Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires.


Believe me, I didn't see anything of the film, but I just know that its going to be an amazing, hilarious, 80's throwback masterpiece! All you have to do is watch this trailer for the short that its based on, and you'll see!

Oh, and anyone who's younger in the audience, no clicking and cover your ears/eyes.

Chuck Steel : Raging Balls of Steel Justice - Trailer from Chuck Steel on Vimeo.

I wish Mike and the rest of the team the best of luck with the project, I have followed their work ever since my good ol' art teacher Mr Latham introduced me to Mike and Jody's animation in the early years of high school. Also it goes without saying that you obviously can't grow up in the 90's in Wales without knowing what a Gog is!

Would be an honour to see the studio and people again! Hopefully one day! Aaargghh!


Anyways, on to the final bit of news. Some of you may know, but as of January, I moved to America for a year! For a very specific thing...

Can you guess what?

;)

It's Amazing. 

Every day I get astounded by the limits these professionals break through with ease. I'm inspired every second of every day. 

And I'll tell you this, you're going to love 2016 and it's Two Strings...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4302938/

WHAT JUST HAPPENED!?

Hello, its been a while!

Basically, since last time, I finished my characters, HERE THEY ARE!!

I also started animating my film, had my final hand in of University, did some work experience for the brilliant RASTAMOUSE T.v series, created a showreel containing some of my shots from said film, got nominated for the 'Best Stop Mo' category in my University's awards show, didn't win, but got a lot of amazing feedback from some very inspirational people. 

We then had a networking event after the show, and everyone was being really really complimentary, which is a lovely thing to happen! I was so flattered!

Here's a pic of the networking event!

Also, I printed off 50 business cards and I now have 4…

Whut...

Anyways, I shall be uploading my showreel soon! So keep an eye out!!

But for now, here are some stills to wet your animationy appetite!

I was also lucky enough to have my work displayed in the university's graduate show. This year the theme was 'Flourish'.

SO anyway, My puppets and set were put up whilst all our year's work was shown on a big screen/around the room.

Here's my work on the wall!

And here's my puppets and set in the show. Right under the projector! AHH

Shameless self promotion at its finest!

We then moved the characters to a glass cabinet for the weekend!

AWH They're friends really!

Here's James' and George's puppets in the case too!

Yay! See you soon everyone! Showreel next!

LET'S MAKE A TORTOISE PART 4 - THE HEAD!

 Today I'm blogging about how I created my Tortoise's head! Here's a picture of him with a bike helmet on.

Firstly, to get an idea of what I wanted to do, I created a test sculpt whilst I was in the pre production stages of my idea. Here is a very basic sculpt in Sculpey. Once I did this, I went about sculpting the final.

I created a balsa wood core (to help with the weight) and then firstly started with the eyes.

To create the eyes, I sculpted the two shapes I wanted in Sculpey, baked it in the oven, sanded it and the suspended it on the top of a plastic syringe. I then encased that in silicone and I then had a mould! WOO

I poured plastic resin in said mould, and it came out like these above!

I then sprayed a lacquer on top of the eyes to make them shiny! The eyes were put under a heat lamp to set.

SO HOT.

This is how they came out!

I also did the same with the teeth. I sculpted, baked, sanded, suspended, made a silicone mould and then poured in plastic resin. 

Here's the final outcome in the Tortoises' head. 

I also created a little mouth to stick on the side of the face, this was made by creating a plaster mould of some rounded K&S .  Here it is below...

 Looks a bit worn out! But basically, I placed an armature inside, with some silicone and they came out like you see below!

I then sculpted the final head with a mixture of different colours of Sculpey, Premo and Fimo.

Everything but the brow has been baked in the oven. 

So the brow is unbaked sculpey feathered onto the top of the baked sculpt. (This is done so I can animate expressions!)

Here's the final look! This is taken from one of the close ups in my student film.

HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS POST!

Here's today's picture of Buster…

I call it: 'Did you sey bisckits?'

LET'S MAKE A TORTOISE PART 3 - THE SHELL!

HELLO!

Today I will be talking about making the shell of my tortoise!

So to start off, I created a very basic balsa wood structure for the front and back. 

I wanted the front to be detachable from the back, so the above design was actually held together by magnets.

I then sanded down the shape into something more shell-like, however I had to replace the magnets with K&S as there was no space for magnets once the shell was sanded down. :(

I then applied some milliput on the wood, allowed it to set and then did some further sanding with my dremel!

You may notice that there is a little lego gear inside this part of the shell, This actually moves up and down on a corresponding ladder piece that is attached to the hip inside. This was done so I am able to animate the shell bouncing up and down when he's walking (or doing anything for that matter!)

Here's the corresponding ladder 

I then sculpted with super sculpey firm on top of the miliput and balsa core. and came out with this!

Here is the FINAL front of the shell.

 To get this colour, I first sprayed it with a grey primer and then a browny-cream spray paint. NICE!

I also did the same process with the back of the shell. LOOKS LIKE CHOCOLATE!

mmmm.

Now you may think, 'SEAN, there's no rigging points to hold the character up when he's floating in the air!?!' Well, guess what!

There's a secret compartment!

I also created a little replaceable shell section that is magnetically attached so I can replace it with another exact replica, but with a hole in it!

TADAH! 

A rig will then go into this hole (with K&S inside) and the character will be able to float and jump to his heart's content!

 To finish, here are some images of how the two pieces go together!

The hip block is also attached to the shell with a piece of M3 rod with a nut on the end.

So that is how I went about making a detachable, replaceable and animatable tortoise shell!

SEE YA!

Here's this post's pic of Buster! Thowback monday!

I call it: 'nom, tasty door frame.'