Inktober Update

Freelance Work - jSleep

After working at the Encounters festival here in Bristol I bumped into a filmmaker named Oliver Purches. He was one of the industry mentors of one of my fellow graduates on the course at Falmouth. He offered me a short-term opportunity to help work on a 60 second whiteboard animation.

The idea of producing something like this was a bit daunting but I couldn’t pass this opportunity up. The turnaround for the whole film was really quick. I spent about one day roughing out some simple storyboards from the brief that was given by the client.

Then we spent one day working on the production of the footage we would need. The set up was nothing like I have ever worked with. I was drawing onto an angled whiteboard from the right hand side. On top of this I had to keep clear of the camera perched up on a table behind me looking down upon the board. It was challenging but fun to work with the limitations and work with other professionals.

Overall it was fun to work one of my first proper bits of freelance work and I look forward to my next project. Also on a side note, I will be working at the Bradford Animation Festival this year and I can't wait to do some more networking while I am there as well.

Life Can Be A Beach - Walk Cycle Animation

Life Can Be A Beach from Elliot Crutchley on Vimeo.

Experimenting with limited colour palettes

Encounters 2013

At the start of last month I was given an amazing opportunity to help out with Encounters Festival in Bristol which is a short film and animation festival.

I spent most of my time helping out in the Arnolfini where all of the animation events were being held. It was great to meet fellow film makers and animators and I had some great chances to do some networking. I enjoyed the fact that all the animation screenings were organised into groups with a theme running through them like puppet animation or a bunch of creepy/disgusting animation. Some of the batches were better than others but if I had to pick on it would have to be the feel good factor which I enjoyed the most.

This screening included the award winning short of the festival called "In the air is Christopher Grey" by Felix Massie. I have to say that it was highly entertaining and really stuck out in my mind after the screening had ended.

My own personal festival highlight was getting to sit in on the Richard Williams "Desert Island Flicks" interview hosted by Phil Jupitus. It was really surreal to be sat metres away from this amazing animation legend who has influence the industry and the way a lot of animators have learned their craft. It was also very pleasant and surprising to discover how much of an animation enthusiast and buff Phil was. He also disclosed in the interview that he had done cartooning before which I found fascinating and my respect for the man has grown. As for the flicks Richard had a pretty healthy pick of american animation ranging from big disney features such as "Dumbo" to the classic Chuck Jones short "One Froggy Evening". To top it all off Richard did include Bristol Based studio Aardman's "Pirates" almost as a nod the festival itself as it was the one and only non US animation he picked and even then he told us that it was between that or Toy Story.

Overall I enjoyed what I experienced and being involved in such a great festival really got me pumped to start working on my own short film work with a view of entering into future festivals. Up next on the horizon is the Bradford Animation Festival which is happening in the middle of November. I have applied to volunteer there as well but I am yet to hear if I have managed to get in. Either way I should be heading to it and I'm excited to see what BAF has in store this year.

Inktober update

If you are following me on Instagram (Follow Here) you may have spotted that I have been taking part in a month long drawing exercise called Inktober. Where the rules are simple: To draw a design in ink once a day for the month of October or as many days as you can. its been fun to try and wrap my head around different styles and play around with line weight as I continue to learn more about inking techniques. here is what I have managed to produce so far:

Character Development

A handful of designs that evolved while I worked on my last month sketchbook project. 

August Sketchbook Project

Over the past month I gave myself the task of filling a sketchbook up with different faces. I got inspired from a masterclass video I spotted in storyboarding on CGAcadamy's website. It's a great exercise to help understand the form of a face the structure as well as caricaturing.

Another challenge was to work in pen for the majority of these drawings. To give my line quality a bit more confidence as I can be quite reserved when I work in pencil. Below is just a quick snapshot of some of the pages from the filled sketchbook of hundreds of different faces.

Overall I am really pleased with my progression and development and will try and do this as and when I can.

2 min Figure Drawing

Quick Morning Warm Up

H E L L O _ D E A R Y

Here is my first quick attempt at one of the doodles over on Cup O'doodle. Was a lot of fun building this slightly frisky femme fatale

End of July Art Gatherings

So here are some of the pieces of digital and mixed media artwork that I have been working on as I try and experiment with different styles and techniques. I am really pleased with them all.

My Work (But Instagrammed)

Hey blogging people!

I thought I would share some of the work that I have been doing by throwing some pics I took with Instagram.

Feel Free to follow me on elliotcrutchley.

It can be quite the wild ride.