A common trend
with my posts to the blog are that I tend to update it for a
period, followed by a few months of silence. During that period though, it
usually doesn’t mean that I haven’t been working. In fact, usually the opposite is true and I have found myself far too busy to put my thoughts down on the page.
This recent period of absence has unfortunately been down to some seriously bleak circumstances for my family. My grandmother sadly passed away after a battle with cancer. She fought amazingly and I am proud of how she defied the doctors every time. This has
quite naturally been a particularly devastating time for me - my gran was always a
massive part of my life growing up and I lived with her for ten years.
However, she was a strong lady and would not have wanted me to wallow in darkness after her passing. In
the time since my last post I have created a few different pieces of work, including both artwork and animation.
Through my
Facebook page, Campbell Animation, I connected with a new client from Buffalo in New
York. He reached out to me to digitally re-create a sketch that he had made for one of
his music business ventures. I created the piece and he was pleased with the final product, so much so that he contacted me recently to work on another design. This recent piece is for a clothing line he will be launching and the design is quite a unique one. Unfortunately, I won't be able to show any of these designs for the time being as the client has asked that these remain confidential. I will remain in communication with him and if he later allows me to present these I will do so.
In addition to this freelance work, I created a few one shot comic strip based on a joke I'd read online (below.) Once I'd completed the first strip, I got an idea for a second one and was able to create that fairly quickly after the first. These ideas were just for a bit of fun to post on Campbell Animation, so I may or may not create more based on these characters in future.
These projects re-developed my taste for creating comic strips. Drawing and reading comics had been my first passion and was what led me into the creative fields in the first place. I have always had it in the back of my mind that I would like to create an action-adventure comic book. The character pictured below is one that I have recently started to develop. I have sketched him many times now and really enjoy working on him.
I recently completed a test for a company called Education City, based in Oakham, England. I was in Leicester for a meeting with the team down there, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience
of touring their offices, though I felt that the type of work they done didn't quite fit my own style. I was a front runner for a position within Education City and was tasked with completing a learning module in the final stage.
After much consideration I decided to complete the task since I'd travelled all the way to meet them. Unfortunately, in the end, I was not the candidate chosen for the role but I am happy with their decsion, I would have felt awful declining the role and I was very much on the fence about it. In the end, I am glad I completed the module as through it I learnt more about Adobe Animate, which is not my native program.
I also created a unique character, that I named Arty, in their style to show that I
was more than capable of creating assets in that style.
In addition to all this, I did more work for The Hashtag Show, bringing to life the Geordie Captain America,
a character they had invented in their fortnightly podcast, and a frequent topic. Lately my work for The Hashtag Show has moved from animation towards more design work, which has allowed me to look towards other projects. The Hashtag boys are looking to arrange a date for another Hashtag Live event, which would be my 3rd show doing the intro animation. I will update the blog if there are any developments on that.
Going forward, I will be travelling to Florida on Monday for two weeks and getting a much needed break from everything that has been going on in my life. I will return with fully charged batteries and ready to look to the next project. As before the BBC project is going through a lot of development changes so my involvement has been delayed again. I have been speaking with The Hashtag Show about doing a possible comic strip so will probably get that completed once I'm back and move forward with once of the many animation ideas I have swirling around in my brain.
