Cancer Rollercoaster

I thought I'd put this post together for those of you who keep kindly visiting this blog and wondered why there has been a distinct lack of posts lately. Well as those close to me know, I was diagnosed with Kidney Cancer in February and have undergone a major operation as a result. My recovery so far has been going well, but as you can all probably imagine, keeping up a blog has been pretty far down my list of priorities. And I'm sure it will remain that way for some time so I'm officially announcing my retirement from the world of blogging. I just wanted to say a big thank you to all the people who have visited this blog and supported me over the past couple of years. I also want to say a massive thank you to all my friends and family and particularly my wife and daughter, who have helped me through the last few months. Without you this is all meaningless. The artwork above was kindly given to me by Neil Boyle and Peter Dodd, two amazing animators. I thought it was too good not to share it! I'll be still available if people want to contact me for commissions, jobs etc. and I'll leave this site up.

Bye for now.......

Characters for OLC

Here's some of the character design stuff I've been doing for One Little Cloud. It's a really fun project and rolling along nicely. If you get a chance, swing by their site (www.onelittlecloud.com) and hit them up on Twitter to show your support!

One Little Cloud

I'm going to be posting some concept work from a great new company I'm involved with soon called One Little Cloud. They are on a mission to create exciting and fun digital toys for kids on iOS and Android and it's been a blast so far! Their website is www.onelittlecloud.com, I'm sure there will be some cool stuff on there in the coming weeks.

Update

I got a chance to finish the final hair details on this sculpt earlier today and thought it was worth posting up. It was definitely fun to work on this guy :) 

Evolution of a Character

Working a character through from paper into a final sculpt. If anybody's interested, let me know and I can break down each stage of the process in more detail.

Initial concept

Tie down

Exploring expressions

3-point turn

Digital maquette

Portfolio Site

My portfolio site is now up and running. I shall be adding to it in the next couple of weeks, with some fun stuff I've been working on. This character came from my recent Wimbledon watching activities! 

JibJab

I did some work for the folks over at JibJab a while back, and now it's been released. Getting the chance to take my designs all the way through the production pipeline was really fun. There's also a brief interview with me over at their blog for anyone who wants to check it out. Here's the link http://blog.jibjab.com/2012/06/25/new-birthday-ecard-old-people-smell/

Enjoy!

More animals......

I must draw more animal designs, because they're so much fun to do. The Housego family went to the zoo the other week, and the giraffes are always up there as my favorites. After the monkeys of course!

Another day in the circus

Academia

Feathers

From a little while ago.............

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....................

Great Expectations..........

I know I'm a bit late on the whole Charles Dickens' 200th Birthday thing, but thought it would be nice to post a little bit of my colour work as it seems to be pretty absent on this blog. I love Dickens' characters because they are so clear and fit neatly into archetypes, yet so specific at the same time. Something that as a character designer I am always striving to achieve.

More Marnie

Snow in April!

From a short film I worked on. I thought it was appropriate for the weather we've been having! Will post more from this project in the next couple of days.

Lovely Garden!

Lovely Garden! from Neil Housego on Vimeo.

Animation!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After a bit of a break I've returned! Hopefully I'll be able update this blog more regularly. To kick off here's a little bit of animation I worked on a little while ago. It's super rough, especially the big guy, but communicates the main things I was after. Might be of interest to a few of you out there.

Pirates Rough Test from Neil Housego on Vimeo.

Fishy Tale

Can't believe I haven't posted in over a month! Some animation tests coming soon.

Train Life

I wish I could have done this guy justice. He was actually more of a caricature in reality compared to what I have managed to draw, but thought he was worth posting. Might have another go at it to really get what I was after.

Tea Time...........

I had some real fun designing this guy. I really tried hard to capture his eccentricity and specific posing. Tea time is more fun than a coffee break!