Hairy Teeth

Scary Berries

2010-12-21T10:42:00.000-08:00

Yikes. I haven't posted on here in ages. Lots of things have been happening, with EpicWin 'sploding on the net and AppStore, and I've been flat-out busy for months on making LittleBigPlanet2 (out in January on PS3). We've just heard it gotten a perfect 10 out of 10 score in it's first published review (in Official Playstation Magazine).

But on to the really important stuff, its nearly Christmas! So here's my Christmas image for this year Scary Berries. Hope everyone has a great holiday and lets all hang-out and draw more pictures in 2011!

iPad Granimator

2010-06-10T11:35:00.000-07:00

It was a real honour to be asked by UsTwo to be part of their creative project for iPad: Graninator - back in the days before iPads existed outside of Apples lab of shiny things. And especially when I saw the other folks involved, like me old pal Jon Burgerman, monsterous hero Pete Fowler, and the super-tight work of James Joyce, Buro Destruct, Airside & Moving Brands.

So, Granimator is a free creative package, for designing wallpapers for your iPad and iPhone - it's super-simple to spray artwork all over the screen, and tweak and edit to your hearts content, and then share it with your friends or the world.

Once you've got Granimator you can buy downloadable art packs, which are about the price of a crayon. and start creating. And obviously I'd love it if anyone bought my one, so I can buy myself some new crayons. Or even, one day, an iPad..

So you can just go and get the REXBOX - HI-DRAMA! PACK but if you want to know more here's what you get from me:

Here's some more artwork, sprayed around ala Graminator:

Go buy. Thanks! Bye!

Old Project Roundup: Mysteriously Sporty Characters

2010-05-24T15:33:00.000-07:00

Next project from down-the-back-of-my-sofa: an early-stage pitch I did last year, for some sporty characters. I can't go into much detail about this project, or the client, but here are some preliminary roughs which never got to see the light of day...

I was hoping to see these characters animated with a mixture of gloopy/fizzy CG and jerky traditional animation (for the facial expressions) and running, jumping and hurdling around live-action filmed environments, leaving colour and animation in their wake.

Except they didn't, because they fell over at the first hurdle and some other much shinier characters sprinted past them. Ah well.

Old Project Roundup: Becoming Merlin

2010-05-15T09:47:00.000-07:00

Next in the roundup of projects I forgot to blog: an interactive storybook I illustrated for the BBC with the production handled by my Preloaded pals. And this one is Bafta nominated. Shiny!

I've put some of the final artwork below, along with a couple initial sketches. As this interactive book employed a liquid-layout (where the layout expands and adapts to your screen size) I had to design the illustrations so they could be viewed on small monitors, where you only see a small fragment of the scene, right up to massive screens where you see all the surrounding scene.

So make sure you watch the book fullscreen when you try it out, otherwise you'll only see a small fragment!

Being Merlin

And lovely job by Preloaded on the story engine, animation and voiceover.

Old Project Roundup: LittleBigPlanet PSP

2010-05-09T03:36:00.000-07:00

It's been a bit quiet round here lately (you'll find out why very soon) so I'm catching up on the blog with a few old projects that I have't featured on here before. First up: LittleBigPlanet LBP.

Hopefully you all know about LittleBigPlanet, the game I worked on the visual design of for my pals at Media Molecule. That game was originally for the Playstation3 so when Sony's Studio Cambridge set about making an original PSP version they asked me to continue one role I had on the original project: making the intro, so having assembled the original crew again here's what we made:

As the PSP version of LittleBigPlanet allows all the gameplay and creativity of the PS3 version, but on a portable system - I wanted the scenes to be less about sleeping and dreaming, and more focussed on daydreaming while still interacting with the world around us.

The live-action awesomeness was once again, thanks to director Matt Lossaso and Director of Photography Clive Norman. And wonderful Stephen Fry came back again to sprinkle some talky magic on it, combined with the classic LBP theme by Daniel Pemberton.

If you look closely you might spot me in there too.

Meatbook Faux

2010-04-28T05:00:00.001-07:00

My friend Spaff left his Macbook Air with arms-reach of my doodling pen. As he's a fan of fine foods and gastrobation I thought I'd give it a coating of pork:

I hope he won't mind...

Tech Talk at DigiFest

2010-03-29T01:45:00.001-07:00

I was very honoured to be asked to talk on "The Technology You Can't Live Without" (and the future of said gadgetry) last week at the Science Musuems Dana Centre. It was performed in the PechaKucha style, meaning 20 slides, 20 seconds per slides, and absolutely no time to pause for breath for 6min 40 seconds.

It was an amazing line-up and great mind-expanding speeches all round. Each wonderfully personal to their author, who were:

Original Photo on Flickr

Curated & Introduced by Aleks Krotoski, Tech champion at The Guardian, BBC etc

Bill Thompson, Technology correspondent, BBC.

Margaret Robertson, writer and consultant Lookspring.
Kat Jungnickel, Post-doc Research Fellow, University of East London

Tassos Stevens, Director, Coney.
Matt Jones, Director, Design at BERG

Charles Arthur, Technology Editor, The Guardian.
Jemima Kiss, New Media correspondent The Guardian.
..and me.

I chose to talk on what we might be losing in tactility as we adopt an increasingly digital world. And how, in some crazy future we might be able to put some of that back. Note the words beneath the slides are a rough summary of what I might have said, in the 20 seconds per slide.

I've credited the slides to the original creators wherever I made a note of where they came from in the mad scramble to put the presentation together a couple of hours before the talk.

FiddleTech.

Hello I'm Rex. I do a lot of drawing, and lot of visual designing. Mainly for interactive mediums like videogames, for example the game LittleBigPlanet for Playstation3, a game all about making your own wonky creations and uploading them online for other players to play about with. It's a game that sums up my love of fiddling with stuff.

This love of playful stuff includes gadgets of all descriptions, bits of craft materials, pens, so many pens, musical instruments that make a vague sounds when you hit them, and probably most of all, videogame systems - mashing buttons and hammering d-pads, and I like pressing these buttons, they feel good to press.

They'd feel good even if they didn't make anything happen on the screen. And the closer that button can feel to the experience of popping bubble-wrap the better the button. That's a Gamecube controller there on the left, the greatest videogame controller ever designed, mainly because it had a really big button on it.

I'm also interested in using these button presses to create virtual experiences, but they have to be fun events that combine the experiences we have had and know, with things that are impossible and fantastical. This offer of fighting an Orc on a bouncy castle kinda sums that up.

And yet my most inspirational gadget of recent times doesn't let me save galaxies, pretend to be in a rock band, or give me something to wave around during a game of virtual tennis. It's something I like to keep in an available pocket and entertain myself with at random points during the day.

It's this hair-holding gadget, yep it's not much more advanced than the wheel. And It's actual purpose is pretty useless to me, I guess if my hair was a bit longer I could wear it and try and look gangstar. But that's not my usual purpose for it. It reminds me of some of the other sensations that the digitising of everything is maybe losing.

And I like it because it shares many of my favourite qualities of playful gadgets and games. It's tactile and it's interesting to touch. It also responds. I squeeze it, it opens. It snaps back shut when I let go. There's a bit of tension in there. So I'll keep opening and closing it till the spring falls off.

And it also promotes a fantasy. It's a tiny Alien facehugger in my pocket. A little bitey monster with as much personality as I want to give it. And it's far better because it was never designed to look like how I'm seeing it. I have some time to myself it will periodically end up on my ear, nose, or broken on the floor. Or with me in my kitchen early this morning covered in ketchup (see above video).

The problem I have with lots of technology is that it's fragile and expensive so it's shut away inside protective cases or behind a screen. Which is a shame as tech likes being touched and is most interesting when you can hack it apart and mess with its innards.

So when looking to the future, I want technology I can poke & twist, break, and rebuild. For me LittleBigPlanet was an attempt to give people something to fiddle with on their Playstation. Dress-up as an astronaut and build a cardboard rocket to fly around in. Or make a rubberised rhino and shoot it out of cannon to see what happens when it hits a giant gong.

Many games employ these realistic physics engines. So that virtual crates can be stacked up and knocked over, just like our earliest play experiences. But we still can't get what we spent most of our childhood doing: gnawing on the blocks and getting splinters in our fingers.

Touch interfaces are fun and I'm as happy as anyone to tap,drag, tickle and stoke but despite all this excitable touching, the only thing I actually feel, is the shiny surface of the iPhone screen. I want to feel lumps and bumps, sharp edges and fur. I want devices that change shape and personality depending on how I'm interacting with them.

I'm still trying to find where I got this image from to credit it.

Gesture-based interfaces such as on the Wii, Playstation Move or Natal, also have lots of potential for arm waving hilarity, but ultimately we're all wallowing in thin air. It's hard to appreciate the simulation of being a mighty warrior when all you're wearing is a t-shirt and trackie-bottoms.

Games players currently achieve trophies for skilful play in games, but these are merely jpegs associated with a user account and can pile up infinitely. How about some real medals that look wonderful but also heavy and awkward to wear out to the pub to brag to your mates, giving bragging an annoying aspect for the bragger, not just the bragee.

I'm hoping for a future where more of the digital data can escape from the hard-discs that holds it. Where the virtual can be transformed back into the physical and cloud computing rains its contents back down on us, as lumpy bits of our stuff. So we can feel it, remember it and share it.

At the moment this takes the form of rapid-prototyping machines, 3D printers. Give them the 3D data of a jewellery design, or the blueprints or your new improved He-Man figure you crowdsourced and it will carve it out of a block of resin or whatever material required.

Or you can log into Figureprints.com , enter the name of your avatar and have your World of Warcraft avatar built and painted and shipped to you. So you'll have perfect facsimile of your virtual self sitting on your desk guarding your paperclips.

The trouble is, it's only a few inches tall. I want the suits of armour from a game, and built to match my real-world size. I want to have the option to do things with it that it was never designed for, to wear it out to the shops, or while trying to ride a jetski. Anything that makes it more than an icon in an inventory.

Apologies to the great CG Artist who originally created the character render.

I don't want these objects because they would have any real value. I want it so I can feel the weight of them, notice the dents and imperfections, give them a bit of a polish, admire them. Feel like I have something that is more than just a statistic to help me win the game.

Epic Sword render by Stefanmarius

And then, just like desembling a lego creation when you're done with it, chuck the armour back into the matter-generator to be melted down into that robot unicorn I need for the commute home. Or to ride to the bar now. Join me!
Thanks for listening. Bye!

Amazing unicorn image by Quix Maiquez

Surprise Lover

2010-02-14T04:01:00.000-08:00

NYC Sketchbook: Pages 1 & 2

2010-01-16T07:14:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple pages from my latest sketchbook, a wonky improv tale of a troubled individual and the tiny Space Jesuit that looks after him.

Drawn while traveling around NYC over the Christmas & New Year. (Happy New Year everyone!)

I'll post some more soon..

Dear The Internet, Merry Christmas!

2009-12-21T04:16:00.000-08:00

Have a great holiday everyone. It's been a crazy year, but lots of fun and learning a-plenty. Hopefully next year I'll have some time to put it into practice!

I'm off to New York for a while, but will be doing an end-of-year round-up of some stuff when I'm reunited with my Wacom pen...

Trophy Monkey

2009-12-18T15:45:00.000-08:00

I did a bit of designing in the third dimension recently, as I had the huge privilege to design this years re-skinning of the Vector Monkey trophy for Spike TV's annual VGA Awards (the Video Game Awards er.. Awards). Because we (as in Media Molecule, my LittleBigPlanet-making pals) won the award last year for Best Team, Spike TV thought it would fun if we designed this years trophy, so I got busy with the neon paint.

I wanted it to fully embody our Media Molecule way of reusing and re-appropriating found materials, so I came up with a design that changes the content of the statue without changing the physical shape. So, instead of the monkeys face being straight-on, he's looking upwards and crunching on the crown with his bitey maw. OH NOM NOM NOM he later commented.

Here's Jack Black waving one around (which apparently I'm told he broke later, the butterfingered rascal) and Jake Gyllenhaaaal staring at one, wondering what the hell he's looking at.

As it's now become a new tradition for the winner of the Best Team category to design next years trophy I can't wait to see what Rocksteady design. Especially after having my socks and spats blown off by their tremendous Batman: Arkham Asylum.

City of Game

2009-11-02T05:10:00.000-08:00

(Original photo by TigersHungry, new characters revealed by Photoshop)

Last week I made my first visit to Gamecity, up in Nottingham, a festival of games, talking, and education, and good it was too. I had been invited to talk on a panel with Robin Hunicke (of the always-inspiring ThatGameCompany, creators of Flower & Flow) and Dr Barbara Lippe (visual goddess behind the fascinating, and completely unique Massively-Multiplayer Online game Papermint). Where we talked about some of our influences, (I talked about SchoolDaze a favourite game of mine from the Sinclair Spectrum) ways of working, highs and lows, and took questions from the audience.

Having met up with my old pal Jon Burgerman for lunch I was able to drag him onto the next panel with me as well, which led to lots of rude jokes on stage and a impromptu session of game-designer Chinese Whispers. A particularly strange experience, as we were doing this with Masaya Matsuura (creator of Parappa the Rapper and Vib Ribbon) Keita Takahashi (Katamari Damacy) and Adam "Atomic" (creator of my current gaming obsession Canabalt ).

Other highlights included too much curry, playing the games in the indiecade including the epic projector games, meeting up with some great folk, and being introduced to 1-up Megazine by its creator, truly one of the most beautiful videogame magazines I've seen.

And this:

Odosketch

2009-10-01T05:22:00.000-07:00

While my mac is having its motherboard replaced, after burning out just after the warranty ran out (Thanks Apple) and I'm having no luck installing Cs3 onto a temporary machine due to its crazy DRM which won't let me run the software I paid a fortune for (Thanks Adobe) I've been looking around at what online creative tools there are to see if anything can help my predicament. Aviary looks like a real technological marvel and I'll probably try that for a while.

But, the big news is Odosketch. I love it. In many ways there isn't much to it, but that's the point, it's the way it forces restrictions on you. There's no eraser, limited colours, and you can't change the size of the drawing tools. Just like real life. It's exactly like when you're sitting on the train and you have to doodle in the margin of a discarded newspaper with an old biro because that's all you have. And of course that's also when you can do your best doodling.

Here's a couple I did earlier:

Full size versions here and here

Playful 09

2009-09-07T17:20:00.000-07:00

Playful is a great event full of people talking about interesting technology used with playful applications. It's right up my street. So it was nice to be asked to do the branding duties for this years event. Here's some of what I've been doing for them (using the lovely stuff that Poke did for last years event as a jumping off point).

You can see more on the official Playful web home here. Maybe you'd even like to score a brace of tickets while you're there too.

I'll also be speaking at this years event, so would be grand if a few folk turn up to see. I'll probably natter about some LittleBigPlanet related stuff, like about avatars and customisation and remix culture. Or maybe I'll just draw a cock on a flip-chart. We shall see soon enough.

Fngz Of Fury

2009-09-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

Yikes. So busy. Can't complain though - but it has been a month since I updated on here so I'm going to try and start hacking through the backlog. So first up is this the Fngrz of Fury web game I made for Orange with my pals at Poke London and Player3.

The game stars the two guys from the Orange cinema ads (Which are actually really good. The Steven Segal one is my favourite) fighting past a number of characters with the power of texting. So the faster you can type the better you do. A bit like Typing of The Dead from back in the day, except with no shooting, and no zombies. But featuring deadly udders squirting corrosive bad juice.

This was a fun one, as I could really concentrate on the character design and animation (just as well as I had only a few short days to do it). Here's some of the characters, combined together into what we technically call a jpg:

And you can play it now here. I still really struggle to beat the giant hamster. See if you can...

Letting The Beatles Be

2009-07-21T01:09:00.000-07:00

I got asked recently to take part in a fun project - redesign or reinterpret the cover of any album from the top 100 albums of all time (as chosen by Pitchfork) for the folk at Becks Beer.

So I leapt on "Let it Be" by The Beatles (well, actually I leapt on Purple Rain, but Kate Moross had already picked that one, so I swapped pvc and superbikes for coudroy and facial hair). I've written up in more detail on Becks' Flickr page my thoughts behind choosing this cover, mainly for the challenge of creating a likeness of the band while also sticking with my bold style, so you can read more about it in detail there.

But here's the image:

And here's some work-in-progress, as you can see from the Ringo sketch I was originally thinking of using a more realistic style, closer to brilliant artwork they used themselves on Revolver (by Klaus Voormann) before switching back to a bolder simpler style so I could concentrate on getting likenesses with as little extraneous detail as possible.

And in Beatles related news, there's a new trailer out for the forthcoming Beatles Rock-Band game, which, although I have not interest in actually playing, looks amazing in the Sgt Pepper segment at about 1:00 in. I want to see more games that use colour, lighting and post-effects like that more. Down with polycounts! Up with art direction!

Guybrush Threepwood

2009-07-07T03:42:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite games from childhood, Monkey Island, is getting a re-release next week, all smartened up for the HD generation. Personally i'm not a fan of the new HD visuals, probably because I grew up with the old version, I'm a big fan of pixelly retro-ness and the youngsters shouldn't listen to old salty dogs like me.

But in the meantime I couldn't resist a sketch of the games sometime-hero Guybrush Threepwood as he exists in my world of doodles and piratey memories:

Grip Wrench gets an outing in Brighton.

2009-07-06T05:46:00.000-07:00

My MTV animated series Grip Wrench is going to be screening at the Loop Festival in Brighton this Sunday from 1:00pm (in the Pavilion theatre), thanks to the lovely folk at onedotzero. I'll be there. Hopefully you'll be there. Although please remember, you won't be able to un-see what you see.

In the meantime here's a photo of Mr Wrench's last trip to the seaside, a happy day of sun, speedboats and exploding flamingo corpses. Hopefully he'll be able to outdo himself this time with a KissMeQuick hat, a donkey and a three gallons of melted ice-cream.

Fresh Smack

2009-07-04T07:11:00.000-07:00

Feeling like jumping around to some electro bouncy noise, while staring at visuals from another world and fending off a man with a marker pen that's drawing a donkey skull on your arm? Well, you're in luck - all these things and more can become reality next friday in south London.

Noises will come from the decks of Merf, Brother, Superstar PJ and Forward-Thinking Tam and live performance by Super Soul Soldiers, and I'll be there to do my usual drawings on anyone brave enough to have a go.

Hope to see you there, you brave fools. Here's the poster:

DuckMonster Destroys PixelToyko OMG!

2009-06-10T14:14:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit slow to post this one (although its now very relevant, as if you purchase The Sun newspaper (U.K.) tomorrow you'll find out more) but I was involved in a crazy project recently called RubberDuckZilla for Coca-Colas tasty fruit cocktail "Oasis".

If you visit the site linked below (and have a webcam) you can play various games that I did the 16-bit retro visuals for, after being asked to do them very nicely by PokeLondon. And by harnessing the power of GEEKMAGIC (tm) your webcam puts you inside the game and turns you into a giant duck shooting lazers out of your eyes (a bit like this Project Natel that my old pals at Lionhead are making for Xbox360, but with more wonkiness and lazerin' and explodin' and for a whole load less less money and with less digichildren).

Anyway, you can play the games here:
www.rubberduckzilla.com

And you can watch the tv spot in this handily embedded video:

And, as I said at the top, if you buy The Sun newspaper tomorrow (11th June) and wave it around in front of your webcam you'll be able to unlock some extra special features. Blimey!

Psst! Sugar & Spice in HD

2009-05-26T07:58:00.000-07:00

Now that I've stumped up some cash for a Plus account on the brilliant Vimeo, I can start posting some HD movies. Here's my segment from this years PSST! Pass it On animation/motion-graphics collaboration:

It's not actually HD in that embedded version, but you can see it in full WrapAroundPixelRama (tm) on my Vimeo page here.

It was a fun little film to make, I took the final frame of Bran Dougherty-Johnsons piece and continued the themes he started. But with more focus on Victoriana, sexual awakenings and, of course, snails.

As always I had a hundred ideas that I couldn't put into practice due to lack of time, but it turned out okay, and enjoyed animating something a little bit closer to my sketchbook style. Something I want to do more of.

And I was massively pleased with the musical score by David Kamp, who managed to make it feel like something far more professional!

Doodlebook Dump One

2009-05-18T03:39:00.000-07:00

As I was saying in the last post, I've been scanning in my sketchbook for this months Computer Arts magazine feature. And I'll put them (and a few more) up here on The Internets for all to see. So here's the first batch of impenitable doodling, these examples are more about story development, I'll post some others soon thant show character development.

These all feature work for my Grip Wrench series for MTV. As you can probably see, most of my thought process happens on paper, and really consists mainly of doodling ideas until I get enough of a collection to edit down into something fit for human consumption...

Here's some close-ups:

Sketching in Computer Arts

2009-05-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

There's a new issue of Computer Arts out, and once again, I've breached security and sneaked into the magazine, this time in a leading feature on designers and their sketchbooks. There's some great stuff in there, and it's always interesting to see how other artists think on paper, and formulate ideas before launching into the final piece. My bit has some character designs from the Disney pilot show I made a while back, and some development stuff for my Grip Wrench show.

I'll put some of the scans I took of my sketchbooks on here in the next week or two (including a load not seen in the article). In the meantime here's me, browsing the magazine just now:

Stand Up

2009-05-01T02:56:00.000-07:00

I'm off to FMX in Stuttgart next week, with Kareem & Francis from MediaMolecule, to talk about how we made the wonky world of LittleBigPlanet. It looks like there's some interesting programmes on, I might have to sneak in and geek out on the various talks on the production design of Hellboy2 and Watchmen.

Talking of Watchmen, here's a portrait of The Commedian, it's not really finished but I'll have to leave it as it is for now..

WibbleDone

2009-04-06T05:44:00.000-07:00

The cream has curdled, the rackets are splintered, the nets are packed away, and Cliff Richard has been returned to his sound-proof cage. And now we are left with the artwork that Cookie & I frantically generated in our Layer Tennis match last friday, and the fine prose commentary of Anne who managed to write it up at a zillions words per minute.

Each volley lasted 15 minutes, here they are all stacked up. Cookie won the toss and went first, creating the beautiful image of Albion which set a fantastically high standard. A standard that I fumbled with in my first volley, panicking about time-management rather than getting on with making something nice. At least my return had a sea monster in it, and an obscure reference to LittleBigPlanet with him saying YARG! (the name of cheese that was chosen as a codename for our latest game update, which is produced in Cornwall, where I'm from).

Anyway, here's the collected volleys. Scroll down for more waffle.

I think I managed to improve with subsequent volleys, finding my stride and just getting more comfortable with working in this way. I guess the x-ray of the cod-piece is probably my favourite round of my images, I'm not really sure that's what a gentleman would keep in his cod-peice, but if I could carry around some ninja stars, a pint and a cod with me at all times I probably would.

It was great fun to participate, and a real honour to play, exhausting too. A combination of exhaustion and a couple-too-many post-match Margaritas led to me falling asleep on the Tube on the way home and me getting picked up by the police. Beat that Mr McEnroe.

Photoshop Tennis

2009-04-02T09:43:00.000-07:00

The Pims has been poured, the lawns have been trimmed, the strawberries are on ice. It's must be almost time for my Photoshop / Layer Tennis match with Cookie. You can follow the progress of the match here, commentary will be provided by Anne from I Like, and many thanks to Coudal and Adobe for running the whole thing.

For those that don't know the procedure, the 2 of us will be taking it in turns to create artwork in a series of volleys, building on what has just gone before. And with only 15 minutes for each turn its going to be a mad flurry of paper, crayons and Wacom pens. Here's an image I warmed-up with, it was done in 7 minutes so maybe there's still hope for me.

Self Portrait

2009-03-19T08:40:00.001-07:00

Just doodled a portrait of myself (it was needed for an animation festival that I'm supposed to be talking at).

The old one I did in LittleBigPlanet that's used as a sticker, and crops up everywhere was a bit out of date on the haircut (or lack of) so I've done an updated version. HAIR POWER.

200 Edges

2009-03-09T07:48:00.000-07:00

Edge has always been my favourite games magazine - I really like their unapologetic mission to examine and celebrate the best of videogame culture with writing that is leagues above most of the PR-driven "Churnalism" that's also out there. And its always been a beautiful thing to look at. I still remember buying Issue 1 and holding it with wonder as i starred at these amazing pages from the future (although, as it was all about how the 3DO was going to conquer the world, it doesn't always get everything right).

Anyway, so in order to make me feel old and grown-up they've gone and made a couple hundred issues since then. And to celebrate this milestone they've got 200 different covers this month, and if you're a subscriber you get one designed by me and my little Sackboy helper.

There's a bit of an ugly watermarked CVG logo slapped on there so hopefully I can provide one without that soon.

It's the third cover I've worked on for Edge, but probably the one I had the most fun making. And didn't hurt my eyes as much when making it as the one for issue 120 for Jeff Minters Unity project!

Sofa Surfers

2009-03-09T03:49:00.000-07:00

Some very brave friends decided to supply alcohol and pens to all of us that came to their housewarming party to decorate their sofa. Here's some photos of its development/deterioration. I like the photo of me, Nicky and Cookie each beavering away on different cushions - wish I'd worn a single coloured t-shirt too, my plaid ruins the composition!

I really need a haircut, Nicky nearly used-up a whole Sharpie pen trying to draw my portrait...

Psst! London Screening

2009-03-04T12:54:00.000-08:00

Psst! Pass It On has got a London screening, far handier than that one in LA the other day, so I'll be going along, hope some of you other cockney-sparrows come too. Here's the details:

(Psst! is a collection of 17 collaborative films made by some very clever people. I made a bit too, about a young womans sexual awakening with a snail. Saucy.)

Chirpy News

2009-02-23T11:59:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention, Grip Wrench, the star of my MTV Qoob animated series has got himself a twitter account, you can follow him here.

So now you can read all about the minutiae of a failed 80s action move star in all it's riveting detail.

Also, LittleBigPlanet just won 8 shiny objects at the DICE awards (from the Academy of Art & Sciences, i.e the Oscar dudes) which were:

Outstanding Character Performance
Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction (yay!)
Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction
‬Outstanding Innovation in Gaming
Console Game of the Year
Overall Game of the Year.
Family Game of the Year
Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering

I'll have to put together a bit of list soon of all the other things LBP has won, although might wait till after the Baftas - just in case ;)

Loving Day

2009-02-13T16:13:00.000-08:00

I doodled this, to say hello world, you're looking sexy today. Lots of updates to come soon.

Psst!

2009-01-26T05:34:00.000-08:00

I've been asked to make a film for this years PSST! Pass It On - 17 collaborative films made by covens of motion-graphics warlocks and animation alchemists. It'll be launching around the world at various events in the next few weeks, and you can pre-order the DVD here.

My film is a collaboration with Bran Dougherty-Johnson of Grow Design Work and my particular section concerns a time-traveling aphrodisiac, a cup of tea, and a famous nursery rhyme. It looks like this:

Taken Hart

2009-01-19T15:36:00.000-08:00

Tony Hart, one of my biggest influences as a child, and the person who got me into this whole drawing malarky has sadly died. I was lucky enough to met him a few months ago and was able to chat a little with him about art and inspiration. It was an emotional experience.

I've written a tribute to him on the Media Molecule blog, talking a little more about his influence on LittleBigPlanet and the little gang of us that made it.

Christmahs

2008-12-24T10:07:00.000-08:00

Happy Christmas everyone, hope you all have a good holiday. I'm spending mine recharging my creative batteries with experimental cookery, stirring my lethal mulled-wine recipe with a protective gauntlet and also crafting something that will be revealed in the next update after xmas.

To celebrate the holidays here's a long-lost poster from Grip Wrench's ill-judged Christmas cash-in film from 1987, Daddy Christmas: Chimney Interceptor, which I found tucked down the back of my OS/X Finder.

And if you're looking for something to watch in the post-lunch vacuum I'd recommend the adventures of Cookie (Illustrator, Explorer, Fellow Margarita Connoisseur) He's edited together highlights of the 3000 mile trek he made earlier this year up the CDT (which I still thought was woodwork class).

Looks like perfect xmas viewing, especially as there's nothing on the telly anymore, and it doesn't feel right playing Dead Space on Christmas Day.

Little Big Metal Gear Solid Planet

2008-12-19T06:53:00.000-08:00

SACK! SACK! SAAAAACK!
I love Metal Gear Solid - and its unusual mix of Japanese technology, high drama and moments of complete silliness. So when we set to work on making a new pack of MGS themed levels, stickers, costumes and materials for LittleBigPlanet I declared the world officially full of win.

It's been amazing to have access to all the original files used to make the MGS games, and Konami and Kojima Productions have been brilliant about letting us re-imagine their world in our little universe. A world in which assault tanks are made out of cardboard, weapons shoot paint and the major characters are recreated in doodles and stickers - which I've had a lot of fun designing and also directing this trailer which shows it all off..

I've also been wondering what I'd call myself if I was a Metal Gear Solid character (bearing in mind this is a universe filled with characters called things like Screaming Mantis and Revolver Ocelot).

So far I'm favouring Giggling Mandrake or Petulant Sea Cucumber.

MAN OF MEAT. MAN OF ACTION.

2008-12-12T02:01:00.000-08:00

I've finally put my website for Grip Wrench live. It's the animated series I made for MTV QOOB, featuring Hollywood hardman, Vietnam veteran and fearless patriot Grip Wrench. And basically gave me plenty of sleepless nights for a year and a half while I was trying to animate all 10 episodes on my own (whilst doing LittleBigPlanet at the same time). What a nutter.

Anyway, its probably best if you just go and have a look yourself, there's some iphone wallpapers too (which I think all promo websites have to have now by law..) desktop backgrounds and of course all 10 episodes are on there, although here's an embedded episode which is one of my favourites:

My favourite LittleBigPlanet level so far

2008-12-10T00:57:00.000-08:00

I haven't really been posting any LittleBigPlanet level videos so far, not sure why, in some ways I could be trying to get lots of traffic by shouting I HELPED DESIGN LBP all the time and posting every moment it gets a glowing review (and its had a fair few of those now..) but that just gets a bit annoying and there's plenty of other places you can browse videos of all the amazing things people are making with the game.

But this level really captured my imagination, its so far from the "look" we designed for the game - it reminds me of some of the old LCD Game-And-Watch handheld games I grew up with. And the use of the text (which they've made themselves) is really witty, the way it narrates the level structure, it's almost like a music video..

I'm just finishing off the Grip Wrench website and then I can get back to making my Grip LBP level...

Cullumdar

2008-12-03T02:54:00.000-08:00

Nearly xmas and it's a busy time of year for a designer/animator person - there seems to be a neverending line of people needing lumps of snow added onto the top of their logos, or animated flakes drifting around their websites or title sequences. Here's my latest yuletide project - I got asked to make a flash advent calendar for top jazzer Jamie Cullum. Here's an image from it.

And you can see the actual calendar (or Cullumdar as I jokingly called it) by running off in this direction. Although nobody will notice I spent ages making the doors open exactly as I wanted to, and hand-making animation on all of them, so they all open very slightly differently. I'm a nutter for things like that.

There's no chocolate behind the doors, but at least you can win tickets to see ACDC or get all arm-wavy with a Nintendo Wii and other less jiggy prizes.

onedotzero london

2008-11-11T05:54:00.000-08:00

This weekend onedotzero pounces on London once again, squirting cutting edge images into peoples astonished eyeballs and I'm premiering one episode of Grip Wrench during it.

The episode is called P.R.E.S.I.D.A.T.O.R and marks Grip Wrench's attempt to move out of action movies and into politics, with the aid of his monster truck, his pet leopard and enough explosives to knock the sun out of the sky.

I've stuffed in a few images below, but if you want to see it properly come along on friday (although I think that's sold out) or Sunday. Its in the wow+flutter programme of onedotzero at the BFI, London. More details here.

Hope to see you there!

Grip teaches some under-privileged children how to pilot an attack-helicopter.

Our hero likes to travel in style. Monster-Truck style.

Showing his artistic side, Grip paints this scene of him, his mother, and a terrorist.

Little Big Disc

2008-11-04T14:20:00.000-08:00

Finally today, after about 3 years, LittleBigPlanet, the Sony Playstation 3 game I've been fiddling around with and designing comes out in Europe! (It should have been out a couple of weeks ago, but we had a slight hiccup with a licensed music track which was all over the news for a few days until Mr Russell Brand and Mr Jonathan Ross managed to divert the press once again).

Look here it is, in the box:

Note the cunning use of the Rexbox knight logo that has sneaked onto the disc, and is about 4 times larger than the Sony logo next to it, mhahaha.

Anyway, so now you should be able to buy the game pretty much anywhere - and although I would say this, I hope you do, because its a really fun game and more than that, it's been designed so that anyone can build and share their own levels and enviroments in the game with the rest of the world (well, the rest of the world that has a PS3 and a net connection).

I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone makes - because its been a long time since it was possible to really make games in your bedroom (I once made a very ambitious cyberpunk RPG with my friend Richard on the Amiga written in AMOS, with a disturbingly realistic death animation of your character slipping around in their own blood. Ah, happy days.) So I'm really hoping with this game we'll see the same kind of mad creativity you used to get back in the 80's when people used to make games about stuff that interested them, no matter how small and mundane or surreal and fantastical - rather than just rehashing what sold quite well last season.

Here's a few examples of fun stuff people have made so far (as its already just been released in USA and Japan)

Kaneda's bike from the Akira movie.
A music video using the tilt-controller and automatic lip-synch.
A car that plays Sweet Child O Mine as you drive.
A cardboard remake of Gradius.
A very topical election level.
A Joker costume.

Plus 1000s of fun levels that you just have to play to enjoy. The mad thing is everytime I turn on my PS3 theres hundreds more to play, it's a constant distraction and it's ruining my life. But in the best possible way!

And if you make anything with LittleBigPlanet, let me know - I want to see :)

Reel of Show

2008-10-29T02:44:00.000-07:00

Having got a load of projects out of the way I've had a little bit of spare time to cobble together a new showreel, filled with the things I've been doing for the last year or so. Here it is, via the lovely Vimeo (although, I reckon the version on facebook is better quality, which you can watch here)

So, for a bit of a rundown of whats in there, its got:
LittleBigPlanet (Intro, Motion Graphics, Game Graphic and Visual design)
Grip Wrench (Directing, animating, writing, doing the pictures, basically making it)
Orange Unlimited (Designing & animating)
Orange Mr. Sim (Designing & animating)
Orange Nokia (Designing & animating)
PSST! Pass It On (Directing/Animating)
And some older bits like Masked Balls (E4), Legends (onedotzero), Violence etc

Now I just need to get on and finish the new Rexbox website...

LittleBigPlanet BigLittleShop

2008-10-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

As the LittleBigPlanet hype machine rumbles on, Sony have built a pop-up shop in London, themed around the game, to run creative workshops, give punters the chance to play it on PS3, and hopefully buy it once it comes out next week!

It's a really nice design, giant furniture that makes even the largest visitor feel tiny and child-like, huge Sackboy dolls, and it was fun to see my artwork plastered (or should that be stickered) all over the walls. It's basically the closest you'll ever get to being inside the game unless you mess up like Jeff Bridges in Tron and get beamed into your PS3.

Unfortunately when I skivved off work today to return to take some pictures it was closed for the day, so all of these where taken from the outside, and without happy-faced monsters fighting with their parents for "just one more go" - which it was like at the weekend. Even TVs Jonathan Ross was spotted there on Sunday playing it with his kids and doodling on the doodle wall. Awright.

More pictures on my Rexbox Facebook page.

If you fancy coming along the address is:

Unit 1&23 Thomas Neal's Centre,
Covent Garden, London, WC2

Saturday the 11th Oct 2008 to
Monday the 17th Nov 2008

Mr Sim

2008-10-06T03:57:00.000-07:00

As I was logging into my Facebook page this morning I got assaulted by a load of banner adverts with things whizzing about and distracting me, and they were more distracting to me than usual because I made them.

Orange and Poke asked me to work up a character I was playing around with back when I was illustrating and animating the Good Things Should Never End site: an animated Sim card. And he's now gone on to star in a number of ads and print stuff. Famous little fella.

Mister Sim is a miscevious little chap, obsessed with eating and talking and flashing his gold gnashers. He's just generally extremely mouthy despite his tiny size, as you can see from some of the examples I've lifted out of the ads below.

Orange have also made him a fan page too on Facebook, although be careful: he does bite.

Branson Pickle

2008-09-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

I don't understand why so many of my doodles turn out looking like millionaire "playboy" Richard Branson. It's quite disturbing.

Especially with the absence of any clothes.

onedotzero twothousandandeight

2008-09-17T07:24:00.000-07:00

This years onedotzero kicks off soon, traveling the world and squirting hot beautiful images into the audiences eyeballs. There's going to be something exciting happening in Buenos Aires to kick off the world tour from the 26th to 28th of September. In the meantime here's a preview video of some of the things screening at this years tour. At 00:17 you might be able to spot Grip Wrench playing a guitar solo on the roof of a monster truck to a leopard...

onedotzero_adventures in motion from onedotzero on Vimeo.

Seeing this video has reminded me to get back into using Vimeo again, its such a great site for video. Here's my very out-of-date Vimeo page.

iPOPit

2008-09-05T03:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a silly little video I bashed out before heading off on holiday. I'd been playing around with the lighting controls in LittleBigPlanet (that crazy game I'm helping make for Sony PS3) and ended up with some settings I could resist making a little video out of...

You can also watch it on YouTube here, if you like watching exactly the same thing but on a different page.

PopIt is the name of the menu system we developed, so that any player can build and customise everything in the game, from changing your hairstyle to constructing a LittleBigPlanet homage to ChaseHQ built from toilet rolls and plastic toy soldiers (if that's what floats your boat).

I think everyone's going to have a lot of fun with this when we release the game very soon now...

Grip Wrench splashes himself on Computer Arts

2008-09-02T15:36:00.000-07:00

My Grip Wrench character has turned up in this months Computer Arts magazine, in a section about my inspiration behind the character and the series. So next time you are down the local newagents buying penny-whistles and moonbeams have a look. It looks like this, and has a stupid quote by me on the cover:

LittleBigPlanet Box Art

2008-08-14T02:02:00.000-07:00

Put your eyes in front of this, it's the final box artwork for LittleBigPlanet. It took lots of revisions and hard work from Kareem & me, and dozens of beautiful character renders from Francis & Men Lu (all visual geniuses that I work with at MediaMolecule) but I think we got a pretty good balance between what everyone wanted out of the cover:

Read more about it on the Sony ThreeSpeech blog..

Taking Stress in the Jaw

2008-08-08T08:43:00.000-07:00

Blimey I'm busy. Working my brightly coloured socks off. That PS3 game that I've been working on, LittleBigPlanet, is in its very final stages and looking like a polished and shiny diamond (assuming the diamond is made out of cardboard and milk bottle tops, and has toy wheels bolted onto it, and a rocket launcher). And I'm trying to balance that with some other little projects, and finishing Grip Wrench (Yes, I know, it was supposed to be finished, but needed some last minute changes to keep everyone happy, it was a bit too filthy for TV unfortunately).

In the meantime, here's an ad i designed that's in this months Edge magazine. It was a bit last minute and cobbled it together, but I'm pretty pleased with it. The little Sackboy character in our game is becoming so recognizable that I thought it would be fun to make a version of him out of some of the other assets I've designed for the game. And it you look carefully you'll see my face represents the characters groin, not sure what that symbolism means...

Oh, and if you're a Motion Designer, a Level Designer, or an Art Manager I'm sure Media Molecule would like to hear from you.

Finished!

2008-06-24T05:11:00.000-07:00

See what I'm holding? Its a DVD of the finished 10 episodes of my MTV Qoob series of short films, 18 months in the making!

It's been quite a journey, the biggest project I've ever tried to produce on my own, and I've learnt so much from it. Right now I'm completely exhausted, but excited because I'm getting on a plane in a few hours and jetting off to California.

But once I'm back I'll start posting up concept art and stills on here, and concentrate on getting the official site online, along with streaming versions of the film...

Doodled Arm Tactics

2008-06-22T08:32:00.000-07:00

Thanks everyone that came down to the exhibition. It was a whole load of fun, and great to see so many friends and meet so many strangers (some more stranger than others). Hopefully all those that attended managed to scrub off whatever drunken doodlings I did on their bodies by now (I hear a bath full of bleach, tippex and fake-tan are the best way to remove them).

If anyone has any photos of it all, or links to Flickr pages, blogs etc, let me know, as me and Brynley would like to collect them all together, to preserve the event in digital form.

Here's my arm, at the end of night two. It's waving you all goodbye until next time...

Shunted

2008-06-19T05:17:00.000-07:00

The opening night of ArtInIndustry was an amazing success. People came, people looked, people made deformed sockmonkey monsters, people got drunk, admiring glances were made, music was played, people watched some episodes of my new Grip Wrench thing, and we got trapped in a lift with a fisherman and a copy of the London AtoZ.

And the best thing is, it's still on for another 3 days. So get yourself down there tonight, or friday or saturday night. I'm having a night off tonight, but I'll be back tomorrow to deface faces, and attack arms with my marker pens. Just like in this wonky photo:

Grip Wrench seemed to go down well, with the auidence laughing, and mainly at the bits that were supposed to be funny. Although many said I have a sick and diseased mind, and I should be put to sleep before I damage the world any more.

There was loads of beutiful artwork to see, although I need to look at it all again as I got completely caught up in Nickys Making Things Club workshop last night. It was quite surreal to see so many people in a club all sitting on sofas sewing and making. My attempts at drunken sewing led to all the eyes falling off our attempt at making sock monster conjoined twins, thankfully I had a talented seamstress to patch them up again before the blinded pair stumbled into box of pins.

Jaypeg got some better photos of this little corner of craftiness. And I'm sure there will be more turning up on the internets soon. Although, of course, it would be much better to get down there and see for yourself, and join in..

ArtInIndustry

Being Industrious

2008-06-14T06:52:00.000-07:00

I've just been finishing off a canvas for an exhibition I'm exhibiting in next week - the show is called Art In Industry, in Shunt (in the amazing catacombs beneath London Bridge station) and features the work of several friends of mine, built round the loose theme of showing things produced away from of their main commissioned work.

I'll also be screening some episodes of my Grip Wrench show in the cinema area, which will be the first place to get to see them in the UK. Not only that, the now completely finished tent by me and the other members of 70p (7-Tipi) will be on display too.

And here's the extra canvas I've been painting for it. And if you're free next week come along to the exhibition, its going to be a fun one. Details here.

Tipi doodled

2008-06-10T00:20:00.000-07:00

Thanks everyone that came along on Sunday to Stokefest, and to all those that offered encouragement while I carried on doodling with what felt like a broken hand. It was a great day: hot sun, cold beer, felt-tip pens, bikinis and spray paint. Thats what I call a good day.

Here's some of my doodling on the tipi. More photos on Facebook, and a few are starting to turn up on Flickr when I did a search earlier.

It's hopefully going to have some more work done on it this week and then the final piece will be displayed in a exhibition very soon, watch this space..

Rexboxhornypants:

A glimpse of SteakZombies panel alongside mine:

Time to pack up and find a pub:

70p at Stokefest

2008-06-05T02:50:00.000-07:00

If anyone is around east London this Sunday I'll be at Stokefest, the free festival in Stoke Newington, Hackney, doing some live urban art next to the stage. As the festival is a little oasis in the city we've decided to work on a different kind of canvas, a tent!

They'll be around seven of us working on the tent. Tortoy, one of the collaborators on this, came up with the genius name for our tent decorating collective: 70p (Seven Tipi).

Hope to see you there!

Work Work Work

2008-05-19T14:40:00.000-07:00

I'm working like crazy at the moment, trying to finish off my Grip Wrench animated series and clear the decks of work before a much needed holiday. So very nearly there, I'm currently putting together the final episode, number 10, and it should be quite a finale.

Here's a crop of a background I just drew for it, not very dramatic, but I'm pretty pleased with it. I think I'm gradually getting the hang of this drawing thing. Practice, practice, practice. And you certainly get plenty of that working in animation...

I'm looking forward to getting all this out of the way, not because I'm not enjoying it but because this, along with my other major projects lately (a show for Disney, and the design of the LittleBigPlanet game for PS3) have all been longer than a year in duration. So really wanting to do some quick projects after this. First up will be animating my film for this years PSST! Which I'm looking forward to getting my (hairy) teeth into.

And then finishing the new version of my main website that has been sitting motionless on a harddrive for months. And do a new showreel. And go on holiday (look out California, we're coming to visit next month). And make some puppets. And build a animatronic sasquatch. And get tattoos. And practice growing a bit taller. And writing it all down in a big to-do list.

In other news I've decided the size I'd picked for all images on here was stupidly narrow. So from now on they all going to be a bit wider. Which will look a bit ugly until all the old-sized images fall off the bottom of the opening page - by which time I will have probably decided I want to go for an even wider standard...

Webby Winnah!

2008-05-07T01:49:00.001-07:00

Yay! Thanks for voting everyone. Orange Unlimited won the peoples vote for the Webbys for Best Visual Design (awards which Vanity Fair calls "Better than the Oscars") so thats nice. I shall now drink drink some beer, rip off my clothes and dance with strangers. East London will probably be evacuated shortly.

Unitard

2008-05-07T01:19:00.000-07:00

I knew my latest episode of Grip Wrench needed a unicorn scene, so during the weekend started sketching some whilst sunbathing, which brought on much amusement from my lazing-around-in-the-sunshine companion. I couldn't see what was funny until she pointed out I drew my unicorns with the horn on the end of the nose, rather than on the forehead.

(the other unicorn on that page was drawn after being shown the error of my ways)

I'd never thought about this before, and had always drawn them that way. I must have been been the laughing stock of the Fantasy Arts Guild. I don't know if they have a Guild, but I expect they do, and spend many a fun-filled evening in the tavern ordering flagons of ale from the "barkeep" and taking turns with the Cloak of Invisibility(+3). I better make sure I don't draw my dwarves too tall or my dragons with fur or I'll get punched on the nose by invisible assailant smelling of Real Ale.

Anyway, thanks to her input I've managed to draw a proper Unicorn now. Here's the final result which I'm currently animating. Horses (and horses with mythical horns) are a nightmare to animate, but a nice challenge.

Funny how all girls, no matter if they are artistic or not, seem to be able to draw perfect horses, when its the one thing that most artists say are particularly hard to draw. I guess it comes from huge amounts of doodling in the back of school-books before discovering they were more interested in having a boy than a pony.

Gripping Myspace

2008-04-16T04:48:00.000-07:00

The main character from my forthcoming MTV QOOB series Grip Wrench has made himself a Myspace page, which he knocked together on his Atari ST, with a bit of help from me. Yes I know, Myspace is so 2006, but thats fairly appropriate for someone who's still trapped in 1986.

Here's his page:

GRIPSPACE

So you can go and befriend him online now, although he's a fairly messed-up character, so be careful. He's into death and grooming.

Webby

2008-04-12T04:48:00.000-07:00

The great gods of the Internet (I've decided they are called LOLZ & PRON) have decided to award the Orange Unlimited site I made with Poke London a Webby nomination in the "Best Visual Design - Aesthetic" category.

It's a public vote, so if you feel like voting, or checking out any of the other finalists (all of which are amazing) go henceforth here.

Ladyflesh of the Ancients

2008-04-06T04:12:00.000-07:00

Snow is falling, I'm attempting to watch Renaissance with one eye (not my sort of animation at all, looks like a load of Poser models bumping into each other), and I'm typing this on my new Macbook Pro, surrounded by all the scattered manuals for my newly purchased Adobe CS3 crate of software.

All this new kit should really speed up my, what I think professionals call, "workflow" - which is just as well, as animation is probably the slowest and most time-consuming artistic medium of all... And what am I using all this new equipment for? Making an old ladies breasts jiggle about. Big lumps of eighty year old ladyflesh pressed up against the screen are probably exactly how Apple Computer Inc were hoping I would unlock my creativity.

Here's a still of her, before the top comes off. You wouldn't want to see a static shot of her after that happens, trust me.

Its taken from one tiny scene of my MTV QOOB animated series Grip Wrench, that'll be hitting screens soon (both on the telly, and online).

...And then all will be revealed (consider that a warning).

BAD-EGG

2008-03-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

Todays egg-based theme inspired me to doodle a egg wrestler. He's warped from years of performance-enhancing drugs, with a bulletproof shell and yolk-stained underpants:

Eggman. CooCooCaChoo.

2008-03-23T13:58:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter you rascals.

Vikings!

2008-03-18T15:56:00.000-07:00

Not many posts from me lately, as I've been racing to get work done, and also just got back from a entertaining holiday in the deepest countryside, where me and some friends hired a cottage, and a bouncy castle. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to live without one now.

Anyway, just before I went away I got a call to do an editorial illustration. I love nothing better than doing some doodles and seeing them floating around the world on bits of paper, but I've been turning down these sort of jobs lately, as I'm so busy animating stuff. But I decided I needed a change for a day, plus the brief specified an army of SWEDISH VIKINGS (two of my favourite things), so I sharpened my Wacom pen and set to work.

So I started off with the rough, I wouldn't normally do a rough for anything I do for myself, as I like to keep everything spontaneous, and full of those weird little ideas you get when "Ad-Libbing". But understandably clients like to have an idea what they are paying for before its complete, plus I needed to work with the designer on how it would fit into the double-page spread. Here it is:

Its really rough and sketchy, but I don't want to get bogged down with too much final detail at this stage. I drew the rough in one single pass, to hopefully keep some of that spontaneity that I'm trying to cling onto. Here's a close-up:

And having got that approved it was full-steam-ahead with the final, which I tried to incorporate a few new ideas into that weren't in the rough stage to keep it fresh, whilst not deviate too far from what the client had actually approved..

Which turned out like this.

Which is far too small to see properly here, So here's some closeups:

Personally, I think the sketch version maybe has something that the final doesn't, especially when reduced down the restrictive size of my blog. But I'm pleased I managed to combine doodley style (how I wanted it to look) with a slightly more restrained vectory style (how the client wanted it). So everyone is happy. Well apart from the Vikings themselves, who stay perpetually angry, like the crazy, fish-fueled pillage-mongers that they are. And we'll love them all the more for that.

Design Museum: Designs of the Year

2008-02-27T01:16:00.000-08:00

My eyes are going funny. I've been spending the last few days designing and animating in a retro pixel-art style, and now the world around me is talking on a 16-bit 2D videogame appearance; I'm walking sideways and picking up roast chickens off the ground to regain "health" but at least I seem to have unlimited credits. Anyway, all will be revealed soon, here's a teaser:

Anyway, back in the real, 3D, realistically rendered world, the Design Museum has revealed its "Designs of the Year" Award / Exhibition - and the Orange GoodThingsWillNeverEnd site I produced with Poke is in it. Blimey. It was quite odd to see my animated doodles of vikings and sasquatches featured alongside the iPhone, the Nintendo Wii, Peter Saville's identity for Kate Moss, the Helvetica documentary and the Dior spring collection. But I shan't complain..

I was celebrating far too much to point a camera at anything on the opening night, but since then I've sneaked back and recorded some evidence:

It's a nice exhibition, and worth attending if you're in London, even if you just spend the whole time playing with the Tenori-On machine:

Best Creative Campaign of 2007 is...

2008-02-11T01:42:00.001-08:00

....that GoodThingsShouldNeverEnd site I did with Poke, for Orange Unlimited, at least that's according to the Internet Advertising Bureau & Microsoft Digital Advertising who awarded it at its Grand Prix awards, so thats nice. I might buy a iced bun to celebrate.

Armful of Smack

2008-02-11T01:29:00.000-08:00

Thanks everyone that came along to SmackIII on Friday, it was a load of fun. Merf, Brother, Superstar PJ, and Forward-Thinking-Tam all did fantastic sets, and I was able to doodle on everyone that was too intoxicated to fight me off. I'll try and collate photos from anyone that has any (let me know if you do), but here's a couple to start with:

I got a bit carried away, doodling on myself.

An innocent piano-playing child is approached by DEATH.

Smack III

2008-02-03T05:48:00.000-08:00

There's a bit of an event happening this friday, the third in the successfully riotous Smack series. Once again some friends of mine are going to be DJing and playing some handsome mixes (Expect wonky-disco, electro, fidget house, ghettotech) and I'll be adding vaguely to the proceedings by bringing my pencil-case and giving a temporary felt-tip tattoo to anyone that wants one. So come along, dance around, get drawn on, make happiness.

Here's the venue:
http://www.westburybar.com/

Here's the flyer I made for it:

Here's the back, with all the details:

And here's a zoomed-in bit, so you can see just how excited that pirate is by the turntablism on display in front of him:

And in other news I just updated the banner at the top of the blog, so that the little Hairy Tooth now occasionally blinks. So scroll up and look! Now!

Grip Wrench Premiere

2008-01-13T03:03:00.000-08:00

My secret animated series, that I've been working on for longer than I can remember, is going to start being revealed this week, at the Future Film Festival in Bologna, Italy. Funded by MTV's Qoob channel (which also brought us all Grant Orchards exceptionally fun Love Sport series) its a show based around fictional 80's action movie star Grip Wrench.

While Grip maintains a Hollywood career, and acts in various iconic movies from the 80s, he also struggles with the memories of active service in Veitnam, and once the camera starts rolling he starts confusing make-believe with his war-torn memories, causing havoc for himself, his long-suffering director and any other cast members. All of which has some similarities with the happy-faced carnage I filled my 2004 short "Violence" with.

There's 10 episodes in all, although I'm only showing the first 3 this week, based on Vietnam movies, on cult movie The Warriors, and Miami Vice. So if anyone is making a trip to Bologna, hope you enjoy it, and come and say hello. And watch this space for more details, and news on the next 7 episodes.

Here's the posters for the first 3:

Bats, Votes and Sites

2007-12-19T12:28:00.000-08:00

A few random unconnected things to blurt out today.
Firstly, an image of mine has made it onto my favourite illustration Blog: Drawn which is nice. It's something I did a year or two ago, for a secret shadowy organisation of illustrators I belong to called Robotface, which decided amongst its members to put together a book of illustrated animals. I contributed a couple: Vampire Bat and Goat. I'd forgotten all about the project, but it seems you can now view it online, or buy a hard-copy (once a slight hiccup with the printer has been sorted out).

Here's my critters:

My personal favourites from the book are The Deer, The Ibis, The Nymph and The Squid. Good work shadowy-illustration-collective!

Also, while I'm here, the Orange Unlimited site I worked on a few months back seems to be picking up lots of attention in end-of-the-year best-of lists, Campaign put it in their top 10 pieces of digital creative work for the year, Contagious magazine has put it in their list of Most Contagious things of the year, and its one of the 12 finalists in the FWA website of the year - which you can vote on HERE!

Plus I've just started on the redesign of my main Rexbox site - it's going to be quite different soon...

Faceache

2007-12-10T02:25:00.000-08:00

There's a new Rexbox fan page now up on Facebook - so if you enjoy doing pointless activities like biting people as a virtual vampire, or "buying" drinks for friends then join up here:

RexFace BoxBook

Pictoplasma

2007-12-02T02:22:00.000-08:00

I sneaked away from the computer last week to attend the Pictoplasma festival in Berlin. And what a fine time it was. The work shown was of a very high-standard and there were some really interesting guest speakers to meet, like Aaron Stewart , David O'Reilly , TokyoPlastic and DouDouBoy.

David O'Reilly premiered his new short, which was about the closest example I've seen of animation and motion graphics becoming art. And TokyoPlastic previewed their new series of shorts, which have been commissioned by Qoob - in the same way that my new secret project has been, so was interesting to see what they've produced...

Plus it was a great excuse to explore Berlin, consume meat and beer and play ping-pong with teenagers.

Interactive Telly Ad

2007-11-13T02:25:00.000-08:00

My little characters designed for the GoodThingsShouldNeverEnd Orange Unlimited website are now inhabiting a stop-motion ad on interactive tellyvision, in a handsome production put together by Weapon 7.

Video here.

I really like how this turned out, and the music is nice too. I must get into doing a bit more stop-motion again.

Thanks to Cookie for spotting this.

FWAH

2007-11-08T09:58:00.000-08:00

I just discovered that ridiculous GoodThingsShouldNeverEnd site I did at Poke for Orange was awarded with the FWA (Favourite Website Awards) on the 5th of November, Bonfire night! This calls for some extra big fireworks to celebrate with!

Kaboom.

Orange Unlimited

2007-11-03T03:17:00.000-07:00

I've been working closely with the lovely folk at Poke on the new site for Orange. Its a neverending webpage, because, as they say, Good Things Should Never End.

It's been a great project to work on, a really open brief to just make loads of crazy stuff, my favourite kind of work basically..

Plus you can take the content from the site and share it on your blog, myspace or wherever, just like this:

Sneaky Photos

2007-10-27T01:44:00.001-07:00

Here's some photo evidence of the Sneaky Critters exhibition.
Plus, extra photos here, where you can also use cash/money to buy art/pictures.

Detail from my tiniest canvas.

A bigger one.

Lots of great stuff. Julies canvas in the foreground.

People. Artwork. Beer. A winning combination.

Sneaky Critters Exhibition

2007-10-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

Residents of London may care to note - I'm taking part in an exhibition on the 22nd. Woo. It's called Sneaky Critters, and it being curated by Ms Sneaky Racoon herself. So come down to the Bodhi Gallery on Brick Lane and say hello, and I'll say hello back and everyone will be happy.

Here's the official flyer:

Computer Arts - Inspirobook

2007-10-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of Computer Arts (141) comes with a sumptious supplement, called The Book of Inspiration. Featuring "57 of the worlds greatest illustrators" an elite squadron of crayon-botherers that they've included me in. Good heavens.

Here it is pictured on my similarly sumptious carpeting:

LittleBigPlanet: Tokyo Game Show

2007-09-26T05:50:00.001-07:00

LittleBigPlanet, the game I'm working on with my friends at Media Molecule, for Playstation 3, just had its first proper showing in Japan at the Tokyo Game Show. So I needed to make a proper Japanese trailer to go with this.

It's a bit of a compliation of previous trailers I've made for the game, but with a new stop-motion intro (made using a glass table, my hands, some programmers piling up packs of paper as ballast, and some pens), and some motion graphics explaining the 3 key principles of the game: Play, Create, Share.

Little site update

2007-09-26T05:49:00.003-07:00

I've done a little update on the main site just to add the recent illustration I did for Computer Arts Projects magazine. Here's a smaller version of it, right here:

And the only other update to the site is me sneaking in a couple links to this blog, as I reckon its about time someone actually sees it.

DesignersBlock / SecretWars

2007-09-26T05:49:00.001-07:00

I went along to DesignersBlock: Illustrate last night, 40 currently empty retail units were transformed into a kind of doodlevillage, with over 70 artists involved. Plus a good excuse to drink beer with friends that were exhibiting, like Jon Burgerman and Cristina Guitian

Here's Cristinas wall:

And here's my drunken contribution from the end of the night:

Computer Arts Projects 102

2007-09-11T05:46:00.000-07:00

Something landed on my doormat this morning, or at least the patch of wooden floor where I should have a doormat. Issue 102 of Computer Arts Projects. It's got a tutorial by me in it, showing how to make huge stompy monsters stomp around in a monsterious manner. Here's a preview, showing the illustration I did to do with it:

Its a really interesting issue, all based around character design, and purdy cover by Tado.
Plus my friend Jules has got a great illustration in there too.

Stickers

2007-09-09T05:43:00.000-07:00

Stop looking at my withered old hands - look whats stuck on them: Stickers! I just got these printed. They are pleasingly shiny. Shiny is good.

They make good facial decals as well:

Don't worry Laptop. You get one too: