About time for another post methinks..  I recently arrived in Sydney to work at Animal Logic on ‘Guardians of Ga’ Hoole’, an exciting feature project, and my first gig away from Blighty -  about as far away as it’s possible to get!

I arrived here in May, and have been having lots of fun exploring the sights, both architecturally (see iconic structure above) and aquatic. Since it’s the season for such things, my girlfriend and I went whale-watching off the coast and saw some truly spectacular sights. There were more humpbacks than you can shake a stick at – breaching and flipping and all the rest of it.  I was very thankful to have a rapid-fire mode on my SLR!

Kangaroos coming up, here’s hoping!

Following on from that last post, here is some of the progress I’ve been making 3D-wise…

 You’ll notice that, for better or for worse, I’ve opted for a four-fingered hand rather than the three fingered one suggested by the sketches in the previous post. Hopefully I won’t live to regret this decision..!

I’ve enjoyed taking the time to work on some personal stuff lately. Yes it’s a character – not one with any particular purpose, except to enable me to experiment with some animation ideas and brush up on my modelling/rigging.

Prior to engaging with the computer of course, I started off with a lot of rough thumbnail sketches and even messed about with a lump of modeling clay for a bit, which was fun, though not pretty!

Here’s some more work-in-progress… by the way, any resemblance to myself is purely coincidental.

Yes, I guess it’s high time I added some new content! I took my sketchbook and pencil down to London Zoo again recently and here are some of my efforts. You can’t beat the pelican enclosure for a bit of light entertainment, especially at feeding time. Hopefully I’ve managed to convey some of his obvious satistfaction at having just consumed a particularly tasty piece of mackerel…

I’ve always been fascinated by the reptile enclosure – How the tables have turned since dinosaurs ruled the earth, and our rodent-like forbears were scurrying around in the undergrowth. Now it’s they who are almost impossible to spot amongst bits of wood and foliage. Here’s an iguana that I managed to sneak up on.

Afterwards I popped along to the British Museum. This Nigerian terracotta head caught my attention, largely due to the way the light was catching it. I hope to do some more studies of sculptures – this one stayed completely still for over half an hour…

Well, here we are… My very first coherent post!! I decided to pop over to London Zoo last weekend equipped with a shiny new sketchbook and a variety of drawing implements (pencils and grey marker-pens mainly), in an attempt to improve my drawing skills. Here are some of the results:

I like Lamas.. sure they have that comical appearance, but what’s really impressive is that they seem to have a firm grasp of posing techniques. This one sat still long enough for me to get some shading in.

Is this a donkey or an ass? I really ought to have looked at the blurb on the little placard… He looks a bit more cheerful here than in real life, but what the heck.

These are called bearded hogs, and hopefully you can just about make out why. This one was half asleep, peering suspiciously at me from the corner of it’s eye – more used to cameras perhaps. Again, the fact that this guy was sitting still was a bonus. Getting the hang of the more mobile subjects is going to take more practice methinks! Watch this space…