Lisbon Images

I said I would...

Part of a church as we went uphill towards castle.


Part of the castle. (I like castles.)


More castle.


Funky Twisty Tree in the botanic garden beside the Natural History museum of Lisbon (it's no London, by far).


Lush greenery of the gardens.


From Lisbon centre you can see statue and castle... It always amuses me when birds sit on top of statue heads.


Proof of Bill Plympton meet-age! Me and my friend have currently censored faces for a few little reasons (maybe soon it will be replaced). Bill is tall. I am short.


Sketches from the castle.






I did more sketches, but apparently I wasn't on form that week.

Hoorah for imagery!

Monstra Festival, Lisboa

I came back from the Monstra Festival in Lisbon, Portugal a few days ago. I must say I'm very glad I went, and I think it cheered me up in various ways (can't say so much for giving me bounds of motivation for my own film, unfortunately). It also made me think again about my priorities with work and such.

The screenings themselves were mostly in the evening; we generally went to the Competition and Student showings. There was some positive stuff coming out from all around - and of course a bit of muck to baffle the mind. There was lots of hand drawn films coming out of it too, which was nice to see.

The most stand out part of the festival had to be meeting Bill Plympton; I am also proud to say I am no longer an autograph virgin. I think I came across slightly fangirl-y, what with the getting a picture taken with him, two signed postcards with doodles on (from separate days) and a signed copy of his 'Bill's Dirty Shorts' DVD. In my opinion, Bill's human-focused films are far better than his animal ones - they're the proper good Plymptoons to me. But yeah, that was a great experience!

Also interesting was Michaela forgothernameI'llputitrightsoon, who also did a masterclass, among some others as Normand Roger. I am only sorry that I was so tired through several of the screenings and classes.

Monstra, Lisbon was definitely a great opportunity - a nice little festival, though not the best organised. There was plenty of interesting buildings and some things to see around the city, too. It was nice to chat to fellow students out of uni-hours and get to know a few new faces. :) Again I say: very pleased I went!

I will upload a few pictures soon of Lisbon-yness.

Ah... March

Well I didn't update about The Princess and the Frog, did I? The long and the short: some good moments, bit too jam-packed, sad, shocking, too many 'unfinished' songs... There's hope for Disney yet, but they just need to brave it and not stick to that certain kind of Disney 'style' that they think everyone expects.

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In other news, the SS Great Britain project is sailing slowly forward... (sorry). Some scenes are close to being animated and me and a friend are to design '70s characters for it.

My main film project is now underway. The Animatic has been through the mill several times and I am into the animating. Less than 12 weeks to go. Pretty darn frightening.

I haven't really posted any pretty pictures to break up my waffles, so here is an early production still I knocked up in time for the pre-production hand in. Since this, things have changed quite a lot, but it's all I can really show for the moment for some small kind of idea...



My film "Not I" has a pig as the 'main' character. The obvious problems with this image: the background is too detailed for this piece really and the colouring is the wrong way round (should be dark front, lighter further away), etc. There has been several changes since; for the better I should hope!

As it is, I am pretty busy; even now I am half working on some backgrounds. I will try and update with a few snippets of my film at some point.

For pointless extras:



A very quick mouse doodle in PhotoStudio that was used in my most recent animatic. There is a cat and a dog too. And a hen.