The Spoon and Me

OK, so I’ve mucked up a few things to get this right, but I’ve now worked out how to embed videos onto the page! Thank the Big G for that! This means that all videos posted here can now be found on Youtube. Not that I’m a total sell out or anything…
Once again, my film Pinny Gig; bigger, better and reeditted.

That’s not all, folks, I’ve also got round to creating my first showreel. I say first, because I intend on changing it fairly soon so that I have cleared, more recent animation. Will see what my work with Maya produces. Regardless, here it is:

And hold onto your hats, I’ve not only got those, but some piccies for you too! Spoil you, I do! First is a line drawing of a cat. I like cats, they’re graceful when they move, a pleasure to watch and exciting to draw. The second is what happened after I blitzed it with felt tips!

cat line drawn

cat felt tip

A happy weekend to you all!

Bron

PS. You all know the score: All work posted here is owned by me. No one is allowed to reproduce this without my express permission.

Music featured in Pinny Gig and my showreel are owned by Gareth Dowle.

There’s a space advertised on AWN for a 2D trad. animator for a collection of children’s poems. Simplistic/alternative styles desired. So I’ve played around with one of the example poems, Mary Miranda Melissa McGurk - the tale of a girl whose obsession with knowledge leads to her own demise - to gauge some character designs for me to work from for the examples, then the simple style ideas.

McGurk III

ABOVE: some post initial sketches of the main character, McGurk. The bottom left corner shows the draft character I went from. Top centre was an idea for the opening I had, where the main character, as a stick person, steps out of a book with flipping pages. Centre is McGurk studying, her head size increasing, then bottom right was where the simple style started to come in, with McGurk’s head fully inflated.

McGurk I

ABOVE: Some more thoughts, this time with felt tip pen and scrap book paper, which is lively and fun to draw on! The simple style is starting to come through a little more.

McGurk II

ABOVE: Thoughts for a later scene, where McGurk’s head is simply swelling with useless facts.

Bron

PS. As always, all work submitted here is owned by me, myself and I, and no one may reproduce this without my express permission.

Mary Miranda Melissa McGurk is owned by Shel Silverstein and Edward Gorey.

There’s lots of things I want; rollerblades, a Nintendo DS, a bikini body, rollerblades, a house, a job, rollerblades… but I’ve realised tonight what I truly want in my heart of hearts. Apart from the rollerblades.

Stories.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done a fair bit in my life so far; performed at Edinburgh Fringe, broken somone’s arm during an ice skating performance, been drenched with urine (still warm) at festivals, gained various judo injuries, dropped over waterfalls in a kayak blind, jumped off 12ft bridges because someone told me to and so on.  But there’s so much more I want to do, so many more stories I want to collect.

There’s other things I can do, I know, but I decided a few weeks back what I want to do.  America is calling, the pull is strong, the industry is ripe.  All I want is a year, max, to make my mark in San Francisco, CA, and collect stories of life on the West Coast.

If needs be, I’ll collect those stories anywhere in the UK.  Anywhere in the world.  So long as when I return to where I came from, I can weave tales over a glass of diet coke.

And so long as I’ve travelled back to where I came from on my rollerblades.  Oh yes, I would rollerblade from California to Yorkshire given half the chance!

Bron

PS. If you’ve not already spotted it, check out my final year film, Pinny Gig

See disclaimer below.

This is my final year film: Pinny Gig

Pinny Gig was designed so that I could have fun with what I was animating, I didn’t want something the audience had to think too much about (or me, for that matter.)

The lead character himself was animated traditionally, then coloured using Shake and Photoshop.  The drumkit was modelled and animated in Maya.  My good friend and modelling genius Laurie Priest rigged and modelled the drum kit.  Then taught me how to animate in Maya!

The two layers were then combined in After Effects, with additional effects and clean up produced here too.

Sorry the file is so small, but the genuine article’s taking too long to post.  Seriously, I’ve watched Mulan and Road to El Dorado in the time I left the file to upload, but nothing happened.  Or at least, not a lot did.  This dinky version is missing a couple of edits, which aren’t detrimental to the plot or the animation.  Hopefully I’ll be able to upload the proper version on a faster computer when I have more time.

Bron

** PLEASE NOTE:  All material shown here is property of Bronwyn Dowle and the University of Lincoln.  Recreation of work shown here is not allowed without my express permission. **

The following are line tests of walks I produced in 2006/7.

The first is a two legged human walk, which I think is quite spunky and a good start considering it was so early on : Walk I

Next is a quadraped walk, using a character designed for a project last year. The sheep character had no specified joints, which made him interesting to move. This was only a draft line test, which is why there’s not a lot of detail on him: Walk II

Another quadraped walk, same project as above, but a lion this time. Feline quadrapeds walk differently to other quadrapeds, which in a sad way interests and excites me. Again, very drafty: Walk III

Finally, the most recent walk I’ve produced. This was a test for my final year film (2007/8) to get the movement of the rodent (a guinea pig, for the record) and to test the colouring technique on Photoshop: Walk IV

Bron

** PLEASE NOTE:  All material shown here is property of Bronwyn Dowle and the University of Lincoln.  Recreation of work shown here is not allowed without my express permission. **

Finally, I have got myself into gear, and posted some work!

These are floursacks that I animated in 2006/7. The task was to animate four floursacks, approximately 10 seconds each, showing the following emotions:

Lonely Lonely Floursack
Curious Curious Floursack
Hypocondriac Hypocondriac Floursack
Wounded Wounded Floursack

Lonely and Curious are fairly self explanitary, as is Hypocondriac (though I’m not sure that’s how it’s spelt.) I chose to have the Wounded floursack as being emotionally wounded instead of physically wounded, as it presented more of an acting challenge.

Still trying to get my head round aniblogspot, so bare with me if things don’t work as planned…

Bron

** PLEASE NOTE:  All material shown here is property of Bronwyn Dowle and the University of Lincoln.  Recreation of work shown here is not allowed without my express permission. **