I hired some underlings to help me with this one. Wishing you well for a fruitful, passionate, growing year.

I’ve neglected my daily doodles for far too long, buried in various idea rewrites of a certain film at work. But today merits one. I hope if you celebrate Christmas, you’re having a good one. Our tradition is to go for a walk on the beach, which today will be rainswept and empty, just the way it should be Thanks for listening.

I’m out of the storyboard phase, ( I think). (Unless I have better ideas.) (which happens a lot, because first ideas are routinely crappy and should be binned anyway.) -Now I’m into color script, that joyous phase where I wrestle with color and lighting, cursing at the computer, trying to capture the right feel for this story. Here, excitingly, an egg rolls down a gutter.

Hey! If you love lots of detailed behind the scenes geekery,

this video from HeyUGuys of the work on Aardman’s Pirates should appeal. The sets and multitude of puppets on this movie really are special. It all reminds me how working on a stop motion shoot is the best way to make a living in animation. And this from a guy who is usually happy with a box of crayons. (I turn up somewhere there too, pitching storyboards)

I think this could work as the basis of a rather disturbing wallpaper. In the meantime, the hero of my ipad book is going through the character design phase…

You might remember I’ve been working away on a children’s book for the ipad. I still am. Promise.

I’m beavering away at the speed of a father of three in his mid thirties, which can be both fast or slow, depending on levels of sleep deprivation.

So here’s a few glimmers of activity. You might recall the book was called mouse and dragon. I’ve since realised the scope of that project was somewhat epic ( I like building worlds a bit) so I’ve decided to line it up it for my ‘tricky second album’.  Hopefully by then I’ll have ironed out some serious creases in the production process. Luckily I had a chicken to step in for my pilot ipad project.

I’ve been researching:

Designing props (more bl**dy trucks):

Moving them a bit:

And storyboarding like a small, caffeinated storyboarding rodent.

More to come.