News..

or at least definite news, is a little thin on the ground at the moment. A lot of things in the pipeline but it's limbo time (not in the fun party way) at Jemillo HQ as I wait for people to return from their holidays and for plans to be put into motion. Not the worst way to be as it has given me a little time to work on my New York animation. You can see it in its current rough state below:



This is my final contribution to the We Have A Nice Day project I worked on whilst I was in New York. I'm going to be adding my favourite images from that project to the website and blog soon, as soon as I get time to do all of the admin required and once I get this animation finished. It has taken longer then the other outcomes because I wanted to take my time and experiment with 3d space and cameras in After Effects (I've also been pretty busy since I got back, so have been squeezing in time to work on this). Generally when I animate I tend to work in 2d space and move along the horizon, so this has been a lot of work, experimentation and tutorial watching to get to this point. Ridiculously frustrating in parts but I'm quite pleased with where I'm at so far. Hopefully I'll get some time this week to go back into it and work up the backgrounds and add the next scenes.

Alongside this I did my image for the Independent, which looked a little like this yesterday:


This image is about state control/intervention. I was told that the article would mainly be about assisted suicide, but I was asked not to work with that, but to focus more on the broader topic of Government intervention in people's lives. This was the idea that was chosen by the art director and my main intention was to use the Union Jack as a set of paths, showing the character being prodded down one route by the hand of the state. It is meant to be a little reminiscent of Government propaganda and also suggest an all controlling power. I wanted to stay away from CCTV and prison like environments and was quite pleased with the way this turned out.

I also completed a full page illustration for The Ride journal last week, which I won't post here until it has been published. That was great fun though, a wide open brief and evocative story to illustrate. It was perfectly timed given that I was working on it whilst the Tour De France was coming to a close, so I worked up the rough with the inspirational feats of Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish on in the background. Good times!

Right now I'm working on an image for Ink Publishing so I'd better get back to it..