Real Life

Long time no blog

2010-05-27T05:02:00.000-07:00

jeezaz flipping krist...

long time no blog.

In the space of my absence [MONTHS] I have:

Been to Berlin, Pictoplasma Animation Festival. [Great beyond belief]

Been stuck in Berlin for an extra week due to volcano lovelieness [extra great!]

Got home to various THINGS:

1. Animation for North Tyneside Council,
2. Animation for a Rock Opera
3. Interview with the Shed Gateshead
4. Photoshoot for the blueprint business awards

5. Realised the world of work is not for me and retired.

Ok the last one is a lie. Sort of. I still want to run away and live in Germany [if i had of been paid while i was there i would not be here now, i would be living a life of scum-dom on the streets of Berlin]

But now the stress is finally over and I can draw and do fun things again! YES!

nothing for you now, though. :)

Maker Faire

2010-03-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

So, as mentioned earlier we did this animation for the Science Fest at the Centre For Life in Newcastle. 

We then spent the entire weekend from 9 till 6 shooting pixilation animation with kids, families, ourselves and the staff. Jay did a good post about it HERE. But I am gonna steal some of his content hahahahaha.

It was super FUN. We were often so tired we felt like collapsing... but children have impossible amounts of infectious energy apparently. We also got to see our animation projected on the walls of the Centre For Life which was cool :) Not to mention all the fun stuff that was going on, Musical Lightening...rubix cube robots...mathematical sculptures [more fun than it sounds], ROBOT WARS, virtual fun fair etc etc etc...

So that's what I've been doing this weekend. And last week our Digital City fellowship ended after six months...and I moved back to Newcastle. Which is totally mad, Digital City totally solved my life, if it wasn't for them I'd probably be in the queue at the job centre or something right now...haha

Now i'm back in Newcastle I've LOVED seeing everyone and am basically EXCITED FOR LIFE in general. Summer is on it's way...Berlin and Pictoplasma is soon...we have workshops and animation work lined up, so it's all good really. 2010 has been a mint year so far.

Now I just have to tidy my room which still isn't unpacked....I'll leave you with our showreel [which is still unfinished but you get the idea...] The buddha animation I did, with the background and extra animation + effects by jay is on at the end as well...

THE END.

turps illustration

2010-03-04T04:43:00.000-08:00

Been working on making show reels and other animation-y things but I found the time to do another illustration for TURPS magazine. Which is a brillzo local DIY magazine some friends have been putting together. Last month I submitted Happy Guts! and they liked it so I've continued with the Fat-kids-with-their-innards-coming-out theme.

:)

Next month they are printing 4000 copies so I best get a move on with some more ideas...ahhhh

I had to rush it cuz I had other crap to do, so I think it could be majorly improved with lots more going on BUT it looks areet when the contrast whacked up which is what it shall look like in the mag so wheeeeeee.

I am in a bit of a crap mood today. bLAh. Need to be productive. Don't wanna be productive. Bleh.

SEEYAZ 

Bus Stop

2010-02-20T18:50:00.000-08:00

Hello.

I did it. Its 2:50am But eventually I can sleep.... Except my housemates have promised to bang on my door and wake me up when they get back as punishment for not going out...They'll probably be here in about half an hour.

That'll be nice. haha.

I'm not so sure why these people are so miserable. I must of been in a really bad mood when I drew this. I HATE the guy on the end, he is a massive sicko. The others are OK.

Tomorrow I promise I will do something actually productive.

BYE.

Bus Stop Sketch

2010-02-20T07:29:00.000-08:00

I have nothing much to report or show so I thought i'd just scan a sketch I done which will be a THING some day [add it to the list]. alalalalala...People at a bus stop....

Three more weeks till i'm home. weird.

BEST DO SOME WORK.

end.

Our latest animation work...

2010-02-09T08:48:00.000-08:00

It's online...

click here 

to go to the Centre For Life homepage where our animation is. It should be playing for about two months in various places to advertise their Science Fest which is gonna be taking place in March. We are going to be doing a walk-in animation workshop as well so if you're in Newcastle come and join in with the MAGIC OF ANIMATION haha.

I'm back to sunny Newcastle [ha] tomorrow actually. 7.30am coach and then a day of animation businessy stuff [not sure what it actually involves except we get three free meals] at the Animex business day at Tyneside cinema. 

Then I'm gonna have a weekend at home, maybe try and squeeze some money out of my belongings via ebay. But mostly I will be raiding my mam's cupboards for food. woo.

I watched Princess and the Frog, it was great.

bye bye.

edit: DUH i just realised i can embed the youtube video:

Dreaming of summer...

2010-02-06T13:10:00.000-08:00

I wish it was summer and I wish I was drinking cans in the sun and smoking. Is what this picture represents.

RAIN RAIN GO AWAY

Background Fun

2010-02-02T15:17:00.000-08:00

HIYA! 

I love Backgrounds. I love them a lot.

Have been doing a background for an animation Jay wants to do. Well...I've actually just been working out the colours and textures in preparation of doing a background. So this is a work-in-progress unfinished test background. thing:

Not too keen on the big tree in the foreground at the moment. I spent ages shading it but I think it looks a bit...shit....haha, i knew it was gonna be shit even as I was doing it. Needs redoing, or looking at in the morning with fresh eyes. BUT I can't be bothered to do any more tonight.

Tonight it's time to play KINGDOM HEARTS on the DS or watch Charlie Brooker. Or listen to Royksopp with my headphones and mindlessly surf the internet while dancing in my chair. I dunno. I am G-L-A-D GLAD right now though.

Back to NEWCASTLE next wednesday ya. Royksopp makes me GLAD: 

ACID BEARS ARE EVERYWHERE

2010-02-01T14:58:00.000-08:00

MR. BEAR DOESN'T CARE.

HE JUST CHILLS INSIDE HIS LAIR.

So....i'm pretty bored. The bank won't give me an overdraft so I am just gonna lounge about eating cheap awful food and making more pictures of bears for the next month and a bit.

haha. It passes the time...

Actually I have more productive things to do. I'm making some pirate props for a test workshop we are doing with some neighborhood kids. So far I've made a coffee stained treasure map and a toilet tube telescope. It's pretty fun hahaha.

Got to make a full on Pirate ship tomorrow out of cardboard boxes ^_^

Ehm apart from that I'm working on some backgrounds for Jay that are nice to do. PICTURES SOON.

BUH BYES.

forest bears

2010-01-24T11:54:00.000-08:00

I am Planning to do a lot of bears. Found a page of bears I did in a notebook from 2006 and I remembered they are fun to draw. Here is my first bear orientated image:

I have zero money. So far been combating this by getting drunk, but that's not a very good long-term strategy for a penniless person. The bank refuses to give me any more overdraft [even though I have proof in the form of a CONTRACT that I will be getting the money in March.] They are massive unhelpful gimps.

I need to pay my council tax before the end of this month...hmmmmm.

Probably a bad plan to have booked a trip to Berlin in March. But money will find me, I'm sure. I have some coming in from that illustration job which I will use for the green ones of these:

Instead of bothering with boring things like food and bills because those things are BORING. I spent all my birthday and Christmas money this year on boring things. I hate boring things. Food is useless when you could have all green DC hi-tops.

the end :)

Happy Guts

2010-01-21T14:30:00.000-08:00

 Hello.

here's a new thing, a happy thing. la la la, a new thing:

 I like black and white.

currently...working on a website and doing general showreel work. Have a few funny animations planned. AND a whole list of ongoing projects that may or may get done sometime somewhere in the future :) maybe.

wheeeee!

Only a little over a month till I'm back in beautiful Newcastle. Looking forward to it, but i will miss the cocoon of my little room and my lovely flat mates and the delights of Boro. haha. awwh.

I won't miss paying rent for a while though when i move home. Need to get a hardcore 9-5 job, or come up with a brilliant money making plan. SOON. Before BERLIN. ahhh!

Next time i may or may not post some pictures of a demolition site near my flat. I truly love it.

Byesies. 

2010

2010-01-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

Happy Nu YEAH!

busy busy busy, still doing Science Museum animation. Have decided I HATE animation and won't be doing it as a job any time soon haha. But this project is ok, can't wait for it to be done done done though.

Hopefully should be getting some money for teaching kids animation some time in the near future though. That part of it is fun. Other than that just design + illustration please :)

Bought my ticket for pictoplasma animation/character design festival. So I will be buggering off to Berlin on the 10th ish of April for a FULL WEEK. Soooo excited, gonna meet up with a German friend we made last time and have lots and lots and SO MUCH FUN!!!!! I have no money to do this but that is a minor technicality. As long as I make it to Berlin I'm sure everything else will sort itself out.

Got no money now either, waiting for cheques to clear and blah de blah. currently missing Newcastle. Here is fun though. SNOW SNOW SNOW everywhere!

Here's a picture I done:
And here's a lovely tune which featued heavily on my New Years:

Illustration work...

2009-12-23T03:01:00.000-08:00

Here is an almost finished bit of illustration work i'm doing for the council. They gave me a drawing that some teenagers created and my job was basically just to redraw and colour it. Hopefully this is close to what they wanted. Had to change it and cut it a bit to fit it into the size they specified and i made my own choice when it came to colours and time of day.

Basically the picture will wrap around a cd-case-sized leaflet with the words on the front. N2L is an outreach service for people under 18 with drug and alcohol problems.

This was pretty fun to do in the end, i worked on it with my friend. But it would have been nice if we had of been able to design and draw it. Councils never put real stuff on leaflets, where are all the drugs and alcohol and scummy kids in this scene? haha. oh well, it's money. here:

Christmas Time!

2009-12-16T06:17:00.000-08:00

I LIKE CHRISTMAS I LIKE CHRISTMAS,
i'm all excited today...I go back home on Friday for the festivities.
Currently penniless and super busy but it's good,

Here is the christmas card we did for the IDI, [Digital City] I designed + animated the santa robot,

lalala here:

Institute of Digital Innovation Xmas Card from Mark Hill on Vimeo.

That's all really, i'm now working on an ident for a science museum which will be done sometime early January.

GOODBYE. THE END.

Fish Parade

2009-11-30T12:19:00.001-08:00

Here is a Fish Parade blog....

It was a nice parade.
I had a fun weekend. I miss home <3
boohoohoo.

RENDERTIME!

the end.

christmas card critisism

2009-11-26T17:13:00.000-08:00

Hallo,

This evening I have spent about a million hours trying to do a suitable christmas card design. This is kind of mainly to send out as a promotional thing for our company [lolzomg company lolz] but I wanted to do one anyway, just to send to everyone...

HOWEVER, I've never been very confident with layout and composition of things. I need help. I know ONE person reads this but never mind, WHAT CAN I DO to make this better? It is meant to be a xmas office party scene. Dunno if you can tell...
Any advice? I think it's a bit cluttered but its late and my brain won't work and I am sick of doing it and I need to pack and blah blah...

ADVICE PLEASE.

iN OtHeR NeWs:
Project Robot Santa is going well....the main animation is done. Now we need to render and put stuff into maya and then make it all brilliant. Will try and get some work in progress clips up after the weekend. Actually i'll have a go at a quick render of the animation I did and try and put it on here tonight.

Going back to Newcastle a the weekend. Gonna mooch on down to electrik Sheep to see the opening of a Jon Burgerman exhibit. Should be fun...
Also get to see loads of friends I haven't seen in ages. :) Really looking forward to it. But I have to pack at 1.30am....bllahhhh...

lalala ok, Goodnight!

p.s: Have developed an obsession with Laika the first animal in space, after falling in love with this tune and video...

Old things...

2009-11-22T16:13:00.001-08:00

I Thought I might share some old stuff I did in my final year of uni. Because I quite liked them and because I want to fill my blog so full with things every minute that quantity overrides quality. Also because somehow getting ready for bed takes more effort than this. I actually posted these on my old blog but hmm ho that one's dead and buried now. They are from an [unpaid student] project we did for Proctor and Gamble. It was about cavemen and soap. No it didn't really make sense. Anyway, apparently it gets shown to their soap making employees or something now...
Sketches:

Backgrounds and things:

I quite hated the coloured characters in the end. But the backgrounds were good fun.
THE END.

NOT QUITE THE END....i leave you with this, my absolute favorite music of the moment...yumyum...

BAF and current things...

2009-11-19T17:19:00.001-08:00

Pretty busy at the moment. It's fun fun fun. Bradford Animation Festival was also very fun. Here I am in my volunteer BLUE T SHIT collecting the signed poster we all got at the end. We had to go on stage hahahaha:

I am second from the right looking INTENTLY at my prize.It was a really busy week, lots of late nights and early mornings but it flew by cuz everything was so FUN. Can't wait to go back next year, hopefully volunteer again. Met loads of lovely people as well :)

highlights were:

MACHINARIUM talk. Amazing game and amazing talk. Download the game!
CORALINE talk. One of the producers, and the lead special effects guy were there. It's unreal how much work went into that film. Plus we got to watch it in 3d. Yay.
THIS ANIMATION was un-real!! i didn't really understand what was going on, but it looks nice :)
THIS ANIMATION is also amazing.

and this is all I can be bothered to link to right now as it is nearly 2am.

So here is what I am doing with myself at the moment...

Project One...

project two .... also hopefully doing some illustrations for an anti drugs leaflet, WE'LL SEE. I hope so ... I want to do lots of illustration ALL THE TIME.

So yeah, pretty busy. FUN IS FUN, LIFE IS FUN....the end

bye bye

cat girl

2009-10-21T07:18:00.000-07:00

I Need to do more posts. So Here is a cat girl. wooo!! etc

P.s I am now in Middlesbrough by the way and we nearly have our first ever job. I'm very almost a real person.

boro times....

2009-10-19T06:23:00.000-07:00

Long time without writing as usual...
I have a silly animation. No sound. will put sound on....some day.

here it is. lalala....erm youtube is stupid you'll probably have to go look at it as intended on youtube. It is not really meant to cut one guy off like that :) believe it or not.

la la la.

I managed to get a place stewarding Bradford Animation Festival, which is nice cuz i get in free. yay! Also my friend Emmanuel has a video in the music video category with his degree film. :) awww, should be a fun week.

heres some other stuff Ive been doing...

Not very exciting. No.

Travel Journal

2009-08-13T07:50:00.001-07:00

HAI
Since I am pretty monumentally bored being back home I thought i may as well upload some pages from my battered notebook that I took traveling. There is lots more BUT i didn't re size them and uploading is taking a million years and my patience is zero. The other ones are all similar to each other anyway, they probably warrant their very own entry. Lucky them.

Oh wait this wasnt done travelling BUT OH WELL I LIKE NUCLEAR THINGS.

Fatty Kiddies Painted in the brief sunshine of Spirit Base Festival <3

^^Stickers and flyers from some cool little shops in Vienna. Must go back there..

[this is me and Charlotte in our tent that a nice man gave to us for free. because we had a Tesco tent and he was utterly horrified at the thought of us camping around europe in a Tesco tent.]-->

These are some weird stickers we stole from a very high up club. It had a million stairs and i had to stick these to my body to preserve them for the book haha. HORRIFICALLY OFF IT, RATHER VILE was a song we made[its gonna be a big hit]:

I missed Berlin more than anything, also I LIKE THESE COLOURS they make me pretty glad...

THE END.
LaLalala...so i am basically at a massive loose end. Viewing places in Middlesborough on Monday!!! Which is the third time i will of been out the house in this past week!! [I am festering] I am excited but i need to convince them to let me let for 6 months only....but who knows...
If i can then i will be stayng in the new student halls DOUBLE BED + EN SUITE luxury ones. :) wheeee. if i cant....well i am most likely buggered for accomodation.

erm anyways. I have been knitting [it's difficult] and I am trying trying my best to buy spray paint and paint a WHOLE BIG THING very soon. It will be pretty horrific I guess since I have never ever ever spray painted before [well there was one incident but it was pretty horrific...and all photographic evidence has been destroyed...]

Also I am making my very own CHILD IN A SLEEPING BAG. It will be a brilliant creation hopefully, just waiting for Becca to come back from Holiday to give me the sleeping bag I need for my NEW CHILD so we can have a CREATION day and I will take photos galore and hopefully My So Called Life will be a bit more interesting...

soon soon soon...

p.s I nearly died this saturday just gone...ROOF AND FOOT DON'T MIX and this is a very valuable lesson

Real Life

2009-08-11T09:08:00.001-07:00

Well my other blog failed completely, didn't it?

My extra special ability to never finish anything I start means I've just decided to start a new blog instead of carrying on with that other one from another life time. :)

THE end of the story is that I passed University [lalalalala wheeeeee] and now its time for THE REAL WORLD and REAL LIFE and BEING OLD and all those horrible things.

What I did over summer condensed into bullet points:

Left Uni a whole 2 days after the hand in date and flew to an obscure Austrian Psytrance Festival. Learnt that: Austrians and Germans are maybe the nicest most helpful people ever.
Left Austria on a beautiful [TERRIBLE] 20 hour train journey to camp in Croatia for about 5 days [hot and nice but boring]
Left Croatia for Hungary meeting our friend Horrible Man who had a
flat in Budapest [hi free accomodation!]
Wanted to live in Budapest forever. Met some more lovely people <3>
Went for a SERBIA ADVENTURE because Horrible Man was DJing there. It turned out to be a fairly horrific idea. We met some lovely Serbians but we were basically in this tiny little town outside of Novi Sad with nowhere to stay...but they did cook us FISH SOUP and chips, which was nice of them. However, nowhere in the world will exchange Serbian money, apparantly it is "worthless". So if you ever go to Serbia GET YOUR MONEY CHANGED BACK TO EUROS WHILE YOU ARE THERE. OR if anyone wants to buy some sexy serbian money let me know...I have like £20 worth.
Got train back to Budapest for a few more days without Horrible Man and met up with some more lovely people and saw some very odd things.
TRAIN FROM BUDAPEST to VIENNA. We stayed for one day. It was very hot and we do not understand the currency.
TRAIN FROM VIENNA TO BERLIN. We sit next to the toilets and try not to have panic attacks.
BERLIN for my 21st birthday[yep i am old now]. Probably the most ultra lush city I have ever seen. We meet up with a lovely German girl Vicky from the festival in Austria and she DRIVES US TO OUR HOSTEL AND INTRODUCES US TO ALL HER FRIENDS plus tells us the best places in Berlin to go. This is an unbelievable luxury compared to the past 3 weeks.
BERLIN HOSTEL fucks up our booking...theyre fully booked so we have to have the apartment which is basically an amazing 2 bedroom flat with bathroom and kitchen and is pretty much the best place ever, for 12 euros a night!! Unfortunately we only booked for 2 days and they wont let us stay there any longer so we spend our last night in an 8 person room hostel...
We leave Berlin and make the final journey to Amsterdam where we meet two more friends.
Amsterdam rains. And we have no money. And we are camping. And our friend's tent is leaking. We make the best of it. We cobble together a BBQ and buy books [LOL] and relax. this is fine BUT THEN
Last day: Some evil evil man sneaks into our tent in the night and steals my friend's money. NOT TO MENTION my travel partner's camera [WITH EVERY SINGLE OF THE 900 Ish PHOTOS SHE TOOK THE ENTIRE MONTH]. But don't worry he's going to Bad Karma central and probably all his limbs will fall off and everyone he cares about will die horribly in front of him and THEN HE WILL GO TO HELL. I hate him I hate him I hate him. [oh yes, to add insult to injury he also stole A BAR OF CHOCOLATE and the pen knife which was our only cooking utensil OH i hate him]
We stay in a disgusting hostel/hotel thing the last night. I buy a head*
We get the ferry home.

BACK HOME:

I have two days to wash everything, gather my senses and go to GLADE FESTIVAL!
DANCE AND DANCE AND HAVE SOME FUN
Have to leave Glade alone on Sunday...get the bus to the train station, the train to London, the Tube to the Coach Station...the 7 hour coach back to Newcastle....yumyumyum. Actually it was ok because I had a pillow and a window seat. Except a man kept leaning asleep on me and in my half asleep state I elbowed him in the ribs loads really angrily hahahah. I mean, sorry sleeping man....
GOT THE METRO HOME at 6am...slept for a bit...went to Sunderland...met the GROUP of fellow recent graduates.
Plan our Super Impressive power point and presentation to show the Digital City people.
The next day we go to Middlesborough to DO our super impressive power point to the people who decide whether we get the money and the chance to try and make an animation company with their help...it is like dragons den but MUCH scarier and we leave feeling very very non confident...They tell us they will let us know tomorrow...we drown our sorrows in McDonalds [I try not to think of all my friends who are still at Glade Festival].
Next morning Jay rings me and does NOT sound confident.
BUT he is lying to me and we got the £4 grand each and the 6 month fellowship!!!!!!!!!!!! yay yay yay yay!!!!

AND THAT IS THE END. Well...that is the beginning :) Our first meeting is on the 20th September and I am moving to Middlesborough and everything is gonna be super mega!

I guess I better link to my final film. Hmmmm......I know its pretty horrendously horrible but it makes me laugh, and thats the main thing.
Basically my Animation Degree taught me that I am no Animator. Well...maybe i could be if that part interested me...but I prefer pre-production etc blah blah...so anyway basically I am just explaining that, yes, I know the animation and technical ability is pretty laughable in my final film. But its ok cuz I just like characters and pretty colours and textures best anyways...my official role in this digital city thing is pre production and character design so blah blah, enough excuses...here you go...

ahhhh. Next entry: Gonna scan and upoad my travel journal of various drawings and stuff I did when i was away...

:)

byesies!

* p.s this is a head...MY FAVORITE POSSESSION EVER!!!