As promised!

As promised, here is a quick animation test for the current character designs I have, to make sure they are ok to animate with.

It's a little rough around the edges but I'm quite happy with the way the characters move. It was really nice doing a bit of hand drawn animation again too!

I hope you like the characters and please contact me if you have any constructive criticism.

Cheers,

Tom

Cleaned up development sketch

I've been doing some development for a new short idea recently. A lot of the stuff is ridiculously rough but I will still put up a selection of the better (more visible) sketches. I will also be doing coloured and cleaned up versions of my favorites every now and then. I'm also working on a few animation tests to make sure the designs hold up and move ok, so watch out for them, hopefully soon.

Anyway, first cleaned up sketch. Now!

Tom

New idea

Doing a bit of personal work at the moment. Here's a little snippet for now. I don't know if you can tell what the project is about from such a subtle image. I'm hoping to be able to give a good bit of time to this idea in my evenings so there should be regular(ish) posts starting now.

Tom

Freelance scamps

Here are some scamps I worked on recently. I was originally brought on to produce some roughs based on a concept idea given by the client. I was later asked to clean up and colour them. Here are the final images.

Hope you like!

Tom

First TransPennine Express - Summer 2012 Ad

I recently finished a couple of months work at Aardman on a summer advert for the First TransPennine Express. Here is the finished ad.

I was the storyboard artist and character animator for the project, which was directed and designed by Tim Ruffle.

Hope you like the advert.

Tom

Aesthetica Short Film Festival selection

I recently found out that my student film, "Botanical Nightmare" has been selected for the Aesthetica Short Film Festival in York. I like York so hopefully I can make it up to the screening.

I was asked to provide some stills from the film to go in the programme for the festival. When I was searching my massively untidy hard drive for some I came across some old concept images that I never posted. So here they are now, hope you enjoy.

Tom

                         

                                                   

IF - "Lost"

My submission for this week's Illustration Friday. The theme is "Lost"

Hope you like it!

Tom

Lunch dood-le - Space Guy

Been revisiting an old film idea recently, so this lunch doodle is of the main character from that film. Trying to take the style in a different direction and stick to around two or three colours and shades.

Hope you like it and please let me know what you think.

Tom

Check out the trailer I helped create in my spare time. The trailer is for a brilliant new illustrated children's book called The Monster Who Lost His Mean, written by Tiffany Strelitz-Haber and Illustrated by Kirstie Edmunds (http://pencilpocket.blogspot.com), published by Henry Holt and Co. I worked on the trailer with my good friend Michaela Edmunds (http://literally-is-aswel.blogspot.co.uk/) 

The animation was created using After Effects.

I hope you enjoy and please check out the book!

Tom



The Monster Who Lost His Mean to buy on Amazon!

Testing out a different method of animating I saw used recently in Jacob Streilein's, "Swelter" Here is the process video https://vimeo.com/42661259 and the final film, https://vimeo.com/40752722. I really liked working this way. Animating simple shapes made using the line tool and then breaking the shapes apart and filling them. I also tried to keep the movements snappy, more so than my usual style.

Tom

I've just found out that I have officially won the "Cartoons for Teens" category at the Stuttgart International Film Festival! Words cannot describe my happiness right now!

http://www.itfs.de/en/home/news/news-archive/news-details/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=129&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=1673&cHash=4c13f7354792536b1222691f2768c77e

Short film idea

Very much a work in progress. Trying to work things out in my head for the moment. I wanted to come up with an idea where I can really convey the moods and emotions of the characters through the animation without the characters physically being too complicated.

I've also been working on a background style for the short. Here is one of the experiments I'm almost happy with. It still needs a bit of work.

Showreel 2012

Here is my updated showreel for 2012, including some of the work I did on "The Lingo Show"

Hope you enjoy!

t.lucas

Festival Shortlisting

Just found out that my film, "Botanical Nightmare" has been shortlisted for the "Madimation" Animation festival in Madrid alongside fellow Glamorgan animator, Jason Petherick and his film, "Don't" (http://vimeo.com/24274167)

I also found out recently that my film has been shortlisted for the "Internationl Festival of Animated Film Stuttgart". It's really exciting to have my film shown abroad. I'm definitely going to try and go to one, or both of them.

t.lucas

http://www.madimation.es/en/sobre-el-festival/

http://www.itfs.de/

Just a small update.

I've been trying to draw a lot more in my spare time. I've also been trying to spend a bit more time away from the computer.

Here's something I painted the other day.