Well im just starting to set up a website to advertise my Animation work shops for schools and youth clubs its going to be really cool and lots of fun once its all set up and i sought out the legal stuff bu ones things for sure schools seem to be for it so thats good here is the front page of my Website.

Music Video

My second project is in Stop Motion about a homeless teddy bear.

I have rigged a toy bear that i got from a charity shop with the intention of making a music video. All the stuffing I took out and I replaced it with plastacine and placed a metal skeleton rig with in it. I then went to charity shops again looking for clothes to fit him that would suit his character But only found a coat which I changed to blue and added a brown lining. The trouser where made by hand (but not by me as it seems I have very little patients for sewing!)And I stained them with acrylic paint to make them look grubby.

I also replace the nose of the bear with some Femo ( the stuff that like Plastacine but sets when you bake it.) because i wanted the nose to move a bout abit in the Animation and the one he had was to small.

Hope you enjoy the pics...i do have ones of the rig being placed in but they seem to of gone a miss. so i will post at a later date.

There is a great film festival this year in and you can submit your works now a great way of getting your work out there and meeting other nimators here is the site with a link enjoy.

Animation Film Festival

The Final Push!

Well it's been a little while since my last post but boy have i been busy with two major projects both very different from each other.


The first one is for the E4 TV channel which consists of making a short E4 sting for their annual competition in which the winner gets his work used for there channel. which is pretty but they have many entrants each year.

About

Every year we challenge you to do something rather special by making an on-air sting for E4. And 2012 is no different.

The 2012 competition is now open. Enter the 2012

E stings competition here

The 1st Prize winner will receive a£2500 and a runner up will receive £500.

The finalists will also be invited to attend an awards ceremony in glamorous London where the final winner will be announced. Special!

For  my inspiration i researched some of the past entries  of which there are many,  and from these chose my Favourites. 


Here are some of the ones i liked.

This is a very slick and tight animation that shows a good level of Technical skill And for me has a lot of visual Appeal with a  element of humour. Left me thinking what a clever little Animation. Very cool!

Nice and quirky which is something that E4 seems to like Animation with an edginess!

I like the 3D work  in this Animation and its  an area that i haven’t worked in on this course yet so Who knows? I like a challenge.

This is simple and fun and shows it dose not  have to be over complicated to produce a  good animation Sting. My love for Stop motion Helps me to appreciate the simplest of ideas that are brought to life

Hey this made me smile i did a science lab environment in my Red Bull  competition

The Big Experiment

I learnt alot from doing this tidy little Animation and from this have later plans to do a little power battle clip with these cute little guys battling it out against each other.

Another E Sting

 This is a similar idea that Channel 4 do with their Logo where they use objects as silhouettes to Echo the Logo a Background or Cityscape.......

Anyway seen a lot of  E4 stings

I have been looking at the e4 logo and was hoping for ideas for it’s use in the animation I plan to do so I was messing around in Photoshop and thought that the logo turned on it’s axes was kind of interesting

It would be simple to make a cute little Animation with these guys!

The  space ship reminds me of the space ship in Space Invaders, the old retro game I played as a kid.  It use to shoot  a cross the top  at speed as you tried to shoot it down whilst trying to shoot all the other Aliens without getting destroyed yourself.

The space ship reminds me of the space ship in Space Invaders, the old retro game I played as a kid. It use to shoot a cross the top at speed as T

This gives me the idea to create a Retro E4 sting using the E4 Logo. ill Post More Later.tried

OK well I've been doing some tests with a programme called Cinema 4D (which my son uses) and i have been looking at doing some 3d work just because it's something i haven't done before so i thought i would make the most of my degree time and challenge myself to new things.

Well i have managed to turn the E4 logo into a 3d object by Taking it into Photo Shop and and creating a Paths File then Exporting as an AI file (because i don't have Adobe Illustrator) Then you import it into 4D add some Extrude Nurbs and you get This!!!Io

It took a while to get familiar with the program's And i am miles away from that! But i am pleased with this and feel it could work well in my E4 Sting.

Getting my work out there!

Well with all this hard work i decide to Join all the bog type sites to help get my work out there, ineed all the help i can getso this seemed to be the way forward so i have now joined Face Book, Twitter, Vimeo,Blogger, Canimation, and Threadless, Here are a few images incase like me your new to this stuff!

What was nice was due to Face Book several people from the Canimation Site messaged me to say How much they enjoyed mine which was cool. and i inturn viewed theres and messaged back it was nice talking to other Animators i had never met before

I have followed people on twitter that i enjoy or share some sort of interest and in doing so they might find my links of interest?

FaceBook is great for finding people and i have had good responses for my Canimation due to this site

But for me to really stand a chance i neede to join about 3 years a go as some peaople have hundreds of friends an links still it is Great for Getting your work  seen.

I am very pleased that i did the canimation thing as it was good speaking with other Animators out there about Animation and our works and the list above is full of cotacts that i would never of made with out it so even though i did not make the final ten in my Catagory it has been very worthwhile.

I also believe that had i had the votes needed in my atagory that i stood a chance making the final 5 maybe even final three ( in the Stop Motion student Catagory ) as the ones that did get through only a few were of a highish standard. But the Open Catagory was amazing and i didn't stand a chance in that

not yet anyway.

Regards

Paul Gatward.