Tuesday 11 December 2018

And so we come to the end of another year

Well Hashtag Live has been and gone again and what a great night! My animation was screened and, a slight glitch aside, it all went great! I also got the chance to see several of my designs on the screen showing the boys in different films, which was great.

Going forward I don’t have another Hashtag animation to do this side of Christmas but I do have the project mentioned in the last post. I had a meeting on Thursday with the company behind the project. It seems that after discussions the project has shifted from a series to a short film, which I personally think works better. This means some changes to the script which has delayed production a bit. At the moment it is hoped that this will be finished for February.

This may be my last post of 2018. Going forward I hope to continue with a few designs, there’s one in particular I want to get finished, which I will show as soon as it’s finished.

I would say overall it has been a pretty great year for me, having completed 6 animations, which considering I have another full-time job is pretty astounding and a step up from 2017’s one animation.

Below I have uploaded the animation from Live 7 and the funny images.



















Sunday 2 December 2018

I'm still here!


So, as is evident from the dates, I haven’t managed to update the blog in quite a while (over 3 months in fact!!) However, I haven’t been totally lazy (perhaps a little.) I went on holiday to Disney World shortly after animating  #Shite and since returning, I have been doing a bit of work on digital character designs which I will post below and more of my animation work will be featuring at Hashtag 7 on December 9th, alongside some fun photo edits.

I have finished animating the introduction video for Hashtag 7 which will be similar in style to Hash Tag Live 6 and I only need to complete the lip sync then do a bit of clean-up. I am currently taking part in an animation internship with a Scottish health company alongside Jon on a project that follows a girls struggles with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) resulting in extreme hair growth.

This is a piece that I was very interested in working on, specifically because it is going to heighten awareness of PCOS which is something I wasn’t aware of prior to joining the team. There are currently talks happening with different broadcasters about this project and a high profile musician. I will write more on this as it happens, as from previous experience with “Marty Goes to Hollywood” it may be a while before I’m free to discuss it openly. At this moment in time the animation work has not yet started, but will be completed in Adobe Animate, which is a relatively new software to me.

Myself and Jon have also got together and made a storyboard for another 2D animation that we plan to work on early next year which will revolve around a balloon and his attempt to be free. We are still planning at some point to give each other a story to animate with storyboards etc but again this will be early 2019.

I have also been planning a small animation recently that will serve as a logo for my Facebook page “Campbell Animation”, this is only in the early stages but I hope to perhaps have this done before the new year so fingers crossed. I will be posting on here again, likely before Christmas to share my Hashtag Live Christmas piece.





Monday 13 August 2018

A blog post about shite!

So here we are again, another project has reached it’s conclusion. Before starting this project, I admit that I was running out of gas, I had completed 4 different animations in a row on top of working a full-time job at a TV company.

This project, as you can see, is another Hashtag Show animation, and is now the third I have completed, after #AnimalTesting and #Live. This project is around half the length of the others, which I was entirely thankful for in terms of workload. Despite the shorter length, this project was really fun, as you’ll see there is a lot of funny imagery included, mainly aimed at character Gary Little. I have decided to name this episode #Shite, for obvious reasons.

When I first started working on this animation (back in March 2018) I was finding it very difficult to visualise something on the screen to actually match with the words spoken by the Hashtag crew. I created an initial animatic, which crammed a lot of content in. As I worked through it however, I gradually started to trim down the excess until I was left with the final project. The parts of the animation I am most proud of are the X-ray scene, which took a bit of time to realise correctly and the bottle at sea scene, which was probably most difficult to complete.

Going forward I don’t really have much on my radar, I will no doubt be doing more work with the Hashtag team in future but I am planning on taking a bit of time to myself over the coming weeks. I have dipped my toe in other avenues, namely game streaming, which I have only done via Facebook Live thus far. My animation friend Jon Campbell and I have been talking for a while about pairing up again and creating an animation since we haven’t done one since the Meatballs animation at the start of the year. 

We are heading off to Florida in mid-September so it is hard to say whether I will get any more work done before then, if anything I may plan out another animation and perhaps work on some character designs. I will update the blog as soon as I have a development.





Wednesday 20 June 2018

Wheezing Cow Intro


The freelance  animation work that I mentioned on the previous post has now been completed. I have posted it below for everyone to see, I do hope you enjoy it! This animation will be getting used on a Youtube page which I will link to when it goes live. This project was quite a fun exercise and allowed me to take some time away from the Hashtag Show, which I will be returning to in the next couple of weeks.

For the next Hashtag Show episode I have already created the animatic, and I plan to start production on the final piece in early July. For the next two weeks I will be on a break in Berlin, hopefully returning with fully recharged batteries and eager to plough right through the next project.




Monday 21 May 2018

Hashtag Live!!

Soafter the last Hashtag animation, the only natural follow-up task was to decide what the next Hashtag cartoon would be about. Mall and the guys sent me through another hilarious clip from the show and I got started on the 2nd episode of the Hashtag Show animation.

However, I had a massive eureka moment whilst producing the episode and spoke with the guys about creating an animated opening to the Hashtag Live show that would be taking place in Glasgow on May 20th

The guys loved the idea and so I put episode 2 on hold and set to work on creating an opening for Hashtag 6 which ending up being over a minute long. The animation itself was finished several weeks ago but I held back on posting it until after Hashtag Live, which I attended yesterday.

It was a great day out with my friend and fellow animator Jon, and I even spent a few minutes on the stage, something I had not expected. The animation work I did was well received and it was a very proud moment to see my work projected on a big screen.

I have attached the final animation for Hashtag 6 below and an image from my time on stage. At the very bottom is a single still showing a preview of what is to come in the next episode of the Hashtag Show.




Going forward, I will be placing the 2nd Hashtag episode on hold as I complete some freelance animation work for a Youtube channel. This piece should be relatively simple to do as it is just a five second walk cycle of a cow character. After completing this, I will turn my attentions back to the Hashtag Show cartoon. Beyond completing episode 2, I have no idea what will come next – I may continue to work on Hashtag, or there may be something else in store for me, who knows? I am still currently looking around for full time employment in the animation industry.


Monday 5 March 2018

Animal Testing!

Back again with another update and I am proud to say that I have now finished the project that I mentioned a couple of posts ago regarding the project with a Scottish DJ.

Now that this project has been completed I can now reveal that I have done this work for comedians Scott Gibson and Gary Little and  DJ Mallorca Lee for their podcast The Hashtag Show. I have attached the completed animation below.

As previously mentioned, Jon and I had discussed doing our own individual animations after giving each other a brief and that may be something I move onto soon. However, in my discussions with Mallorca Lee, I have found that there may be more work to be done on The Hashtag Show, including a potential piece for their live action show.

                                         

Tuesday 30 January 2018

Food Doggy

As previously mentioned, the Meatballs cartoon "Food Doggy" is now finally completed and I have posted it across my social media channels and on my website.

Now going forward I will continue to work on the animation project for the Scottish DJ and the podcast he works on. I'm not sure where we go from there. I feel quite tired from going from one project to the next so will take a break after this one.

I have posted Food Doggy below, enjoy! 🐶

Saturday 13 January 2018

New year, new animation!

So a new year has come and now that the festivities are over I can start to focus on animation again. "Meatballs" is still incomplete at the moment but I have ramped things up and the aim is to have it finished for Jan 21st.

I have also been in contact with a Scottish DJ recently who is part of a comedy podcast with two Scottish comedians. What they are looking to do is to add animated characters over the voices to complement what they are discussing.

So far I have designed the three hosts and will be moving on to doing an animatic shortly for the first clip, which is about a minute long.

Following on from that, I will focus on getting "Meatballs" completed and out there. I have also put together my 2018 showreel and will have that updated on the site once "Meatballs" is finished.

I am also writing my own short story, which is at around 10,000 words, so as can be expected, doing this while working a 40 hour p/w job, is pretty exhausting. I am looking forward to getting the dog animation done and focusing on the new piece. It's hard to believe it started as a 24 hour animation idea that was supposed to be completed within a day.

I will update again in a week or so once the latest project is complete.