More Beautiful Mermay Mermaids!

It's been so wonderful to paint so much. My editor begins editing Tailbone next week! Happy VE day everyone <3

Mr. Bobbit

Another Mermay for you! He only nibbles a little bit :) Inspired by a combination of the seaworm and the more aggressive bobbit worm for Mermay!

Family Day Out

Finally finished my first rigs in Toonboom Harmony! :D Ninetails taking her family out for a day trip :) This has been really good practise for my short film too!

MerMay and kitties!

Some Cats Fanart of my boy Skimbleshanks and another Mermay edition, 'The Fisherman's Wife'. I always did love those fairytales where the fisherman meets a mermaid and makes it his mission to woo her!

Happy MerMay!

Happy MerMay everyone! We are still currently in lockdown but that doesn't mean that I haven't been productive. I've been painting, drawing (digitally and traditionally) rigging, animating, writing and now have an editor! A real life editor working on my novel Tailbone with me! Isn't that crazy? What a milestone! Mermay is upon us and I have a plethora of mermaid artwork waiting for upload and finish. To kick off here is a selkie with her cuddly family! There will be more rig and aniamtion updates to follow soon once I have finished a painting for my father's birthday! Happy Mermay everyone and stay safe! x

Lock Down!

So the world is a little bit on fire at the moment, but, not dwelling on that, being locked in has given me lots of time to continue my work on my short film currently nicknamed Project Nyx, and also to keep writing! If editors are available, I shall seek out a professional one next week - or failing that, have to put that on hold until this all blows over. My rigging course complete, I am pleased to say I have learned quite a lot! Currently I am rigging the background character of my seagull, and improving my techniques. It may seem small but for me, it's a huge step, and the character designs are also coming together really well. Meanwhile, the 'Trophy' (or sometimes referred to as Princess, even though she isn't one!) is also taking shape. Some fabulous riggers I have had the pleasure of working with are up for helping me on the more difficult rigs, and I couldn't be more grateful. Stay safe friends and watch this space!

Happy 2020!

Bristol is great! I'm loving working on the show in A Productions, which I will be able to post more about when it airs in March for the first time. It's a wonderful show, really progressive and we have such a great team! That said, I've returned fully to my short film currently titled Project Nyx after a hiatus. A hiatus for good reason! So it turns out completely working in hand drawn animation is more time consuming than I realised - who'd a thunk, right? Simply put, I animate all day and then have a few evening hours at best to put towards my own animation...that's when I'm not writing, or painting or sewing of course. I've really been trying to only work on one project at a time and it's been tough, but a learning curve. With Nyx progressing much slower than I had wanted in TVPaint, I was approached by one of my brother's who, in his amazing developing band Karab, wanted to hire me to create them a music video. I agreed, and Nyx was shelved for a time. Well six months on (yeah that project was hand drawn too...) the music video for Karab's new release 'Corrective Therapy' is up and live, coinciding with their gig in Camden no less! You can watch the full finished video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rn5iE7rei0 Although this video was hand drawn as well, I worked with a client to a brief, and was able to manage reality much better with reuse scenes and repetition, as well as black and white imagery. Butterflies were the intended focus as they were a more forgiving frame rate and also could sympathetically handle any animation errors, due to their errative movements. All of this helped to push the project forward with the one man band which was I...I spent most of my life working on this when I wasn't at work on the Cbeebies show. The deadline initially was October but extended to January when I moved house and wasn't able to use my software for a month. Finishing Corrective Therapy was important to me and also helped me to fully develop my skills in Toonboom in the meantime, reassuring me that animating my own film would need rigs to become reality. So I'm now learning to rig! And I intended to go full ham with the Clockwork Cat story, but my partner reminded me that he "really did like the fish boy idea." So I return to Nyx, that little blue gem and, knowing I designed Nyx to be easier to work with in his colourful world - it feels right. With all that in mind! I am still persuing publication for my novel Tailbone and I feel like it's soon to go to the next stage of further edit, rather than being picked up. No matter, I knew publishing was a haughty mistress! I shall persevere, while returning to write as well. Darn, I miss writing. Next year I may make a writing year. OH and enjoy a lovely orc boy with some serious Dragonball Z vibes. More art to come for Nyx!