How we might drive

I got the chance to design some futuristic racing cars - for a job that hopefully might still happen so I can't say too much about it - other than it was pretty much a dream job for me, Here are a few of the many thumbnail designs I did...

... and some comedy pit robots...
... and finally a few more finished desgns done in photoshop (though I did 'borrow' the hubless wheels from the internet somewhere) The first, my favourite is a slightly retro, Bugatti inspired one...

Olympic Mascot Designs

Here's another in the series 'jobs that I didn't get or never happened'. I've got quite a lot of stuff in that category - sometimes when you get a run of pitches going down that path you begin to wonder if you're doing something wrong. Then you have to remind yourself that it's not you - it's everyone else who's stupid.

Anyway, earlier in the year I got the chance to pitch some mascot designs for the olympics. I started by doing a few thumbnails and thinking about how these mascots are usually used. They get printed on merchandise and then end up as big foam suits to be worn at promotional events. This is where I think a lot of previous designs which have looked beautiful as 2D designs in print can go terribly wrong so I thought it would be good to design something with this use in mind.

I thought about various themes, landmarks, what makes us British, how do the rest of the world think of us, stereotypes... I decided that the rest of the world think we drink a lot of tea, and it's true, a lot of us do like a cuppa. Also though, I think we like our humour, sometimes silly humour and are very good at laughing at ourselves. This is what I liked about the tea cup idea - it played on a commonly held stereotype and was funny too. I envisioned sporting events for the different cups -'It's a Knockout' style, it would have been great! Pity the judging panel didn't think so. They probably drank tall frappucinos and skinny macchiolatos or something.

Of Monsters and Beavers

I was asked to do a few quick monster designs last week. Turned out what they actually wanted was beavers. Easy mistake.

This Week

Here's a job that did happen. I did a series of vox pop animations leading up to the election. The interviews were with people in the street who weren't going to bother voting.

There wasn't a lot of time and they wanted about 2 minutes a week. There wasn't much money either - so I had to do it all myself. I'd get the sound and edit it down on on Monday morning, on Wednesday night it was on the TV and I'd have started the second minute for Fridays show! The only way I could do it was to keep the characters very simple - built out of a kit of parts that could be re-used again and again.

Creature Comforts

A little while back I did the only cg characters in Creature Comforts. A plankton and some cells which divided as they spoke...

Blobs

Here are some quick doodles for a very simple character...



And here's what it became...

Professors and assistants

I'm going to try and get this thing going again - it's beena busy year. Here are a few designs I did for a pitch...

Aliens

Here's a few character designs for a job I'm working on - can't say what it is at the moment - top secret - very hush hush ;)