10403

Last season of “Ooglies” - a stop motion show I’ve been working on won a BAFTA last night. It’s some British Award type of thing, or so I’m told. Sounds swell ꒰๑•‧̮ૣ•ૣ๑꒱
(yes, swell enough to put an emoji like that indeed)

And I’m good, just doing little things, like an ant, or a bee, putting little pieces together every day to make a cool film. I will make a cool film, by the way. But heck knows when it will be actually finished.. some day.

I’m a bit saddened by some attitudes towards recent international events. A bit worried. And apparently, I’ve became a happy-go-lucky left wing idealist, so I’ve been told. Like it’s a bad thing..

9876: giffing

So here, making gifs became my thing this year. It’s a good exercise, allows to jump between styles every week (unlike real deal animation when you’re stuck in one thing for a month before you realise it’s been a year already). I publish those monstrosities on tumblr. Real world commissions are in most cases owned by clients anyway, so I can’t post much of those.
Freedom of freelancing kicks in a bit too, so I’ve been able to travel more this year, see some inspiring things. I’ve not managed to get to southern hemisphere yet. Which I regret. But I will get there some time. I got sunburn anyway, that's something, for an animator. God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world, pretty much.

9817

gif put together out of bits from work. I like making gifs. But I make them too long. And who the heck make gifs on 24fps anyway...?

9832

things I do to save my soul from being devoured by work. little bird says I'll have a break in May. But he's a compulsive liar, so I wouldn't bet on anything solid.

9793

maybe you can get my stench in this, maybe.

9786

9768

9653

9622

possibly one of the backgrounds for one of my current commissions. Possibly. But I liked it as an image, so in case it never made it to the final render, here it is for the records.

9515

9447

Respect for people still checking here. My oh my, I'm so bad.

HERE you can WATCH a music video I made in August but it only just came out recently.

9404

Some real animation for once:

A little test I made a week ago using Alma Mater Edinburgh College of Art rostrum I adore. The one "Etude" was made on. I could marry that rostrum.

Hedgehog has been liberated this week, which could be sad news, but I'm strangely… happy about it. Liberated is the word.

9333

I'm feeling real bad about not posting cos I wanted to discipline myself into being more productive, but I'm not having easy time exactly, on many levels, so it's hard. I'm sorry.

That's a little .gif extract from a project I've been working on in August, but it's not available online yet.

9304: bird theme

 I saw this homeless man one day on Princes Street. I was walking home after work in the evening, and he was reading a book. I glanced him as I walked by; it was an ornithology book. I'm sure that reality was far from romantic or even interesting, but I allowed myself to dramatise it a bit in my head: birds being free, beautiful creatures "above" us - ever trapped by gravity; you know a bit like this over-quoted Oscar Wilde about gutter and stars.

It also reminded me of all the ornithology books I've read when I was younger that I got from my granddad. He knew a lot about birds and he could tell them by their song. That impressed me, and I wanted him to teach me, but he died before that, and took this, and many other things, with him. I was left with many books, but none of them could tell me how to tell the birds by their song.

I never met anyone who could since then. Anyone would would care about such thing at all.

9286

 Like Brucey noticed on her blog, it's not much animation anymore, really.

So here: first it was supposed to be an illustration, but then I couldn't think of a way of putting this across in one image, it became half a comic strip, up to the point when I was: hell, I may as well just animate it, won't take long. Just one evening of amusing myself.

Anyway, another thing with this relentless drawing attempts of mine: I kind of got into this set of mind then I have to make at least one presentable artistic output thing (namely: a drawing, but not always) a day (fellow 'art outputers' would know what that means - an equivalent of when someone takes up jogging or yoga or something ridiculously healthy like giving up smoking*, absolute opposite of the usual bohemian self-destruction). That obviously leads to producing heaps of what I'd like to believe to be meaningful and interesting, but may in fact be just a mediocre crap. Here, on willanimateforwine tumblr, I shall store that crap away. This blog still goes, and it's still THE blog, for all my dodgy revelations and such (selected 'artistic output things' of better quality), like it was before.

Besides, I can't comprehend tumblr. Makes me dizzy,like a a granny sitting to check BBC news online with her grandson. Like, I know how to post things cos that's simple, but anything else, dearee-me, I'm out of there.

*chill, I'm not doing any of those.

9055

Animation is a sticky poo. It's something on the edge of many religions, it's a bit of everything in a wide meanings of 'fine art' and 'visual entertainment'. I thought I was regarding it more as art, less as design, hence my choice of alma mater. Of course one needs to pay taxes for the doubtful pleasure of being alive, and therefore embrace the commercial side of animation to pay the bills.

I've been thinking recently of all this film making I've been known to be doing. Like: what's the point, and such. Really, there isn't much point, yet the effort is enormous, so the balance's not quite right. And it's not about making them any different way, so they're more this or that. Like, maybe less obscure, less arty-farty. That doesn't bother me, actually. It's the pointlessness of producing fine art in general, and depths of the animation industry swamps that easily get one caught in technical details. So it becomes less and less about art, up to the day when you find yourself fascinated by a new camera lens or a video codec and nothing else. I sometimes get an impression we're stonemasons who, obsessed with sculpting the most meticulously patterned pillar, lost sight of the god they were building the temple for.

So I sometimes wonder if I should do something else. But I'm a damn animator. Hopeless case.

I guess I'll just continue to make films. My hair grow whether I like it or not, and so are the films - that can't be helped. Oh dear…


Also, here's another tea 'poem' I found in my old sketchbook. Worry not, rest of them seems mostly too personal to be published so it's not a new fashion.

Yes, my life's about drinking tea a lot.

8808

Back in the bar, flat and job hunting still. Freelance life - things get turned around from day to day. I can't tell the up from down. Or maybe it's that vodka. Oh yeah, did I mention I was back in the bar I used to work before? It's not bad.


a sketch of Cat Bruce, my classmate. I drew that like two months ago, but never got around to scan it.



here you can watch the video I was working on recently. Sorry for youtube quality. Considering it took me two days to make, I'm quite happy with it. Bright colours, everything happy and sparkling.

8800

First about the project I did a while ago for Avital Ash: it's still not officially out (the opening titles will be available with the film), but here you can see a wee preview of work in progress:



Also, a stop motion animation advert (yes, I am a stop motion animator now. It came as as surprise to me as well) that should be out quite soon (this week probably), I'll post it here, but for now, here are some stills:


These dolls are really adorable. At first I was a bit like: that's a shift, I just finished a video about suicide (the Kaleidoscope), and I'm in the happy world of dolls, but playing with them was great. They're produced by local Edinburgh company.

Personal live: trying to get a flat. Oh my I want to get a flat... I hope it's not gonna be a nightmare - you know, cos many people are renting them just for the festival in August, and August is just when I need to move. The joy of living in Edinburgh.

8734

So the Britain is great, even ones like me get to wave the flag these jolly days. I've been out killing swans yesterday. I wasn't really. My friend was. But he didn't mean to, he has this addiction: he has to feed the birds, no matter how many times I tell him it's actually bad for them. I like singing "kill the birds" (to the melody of "feed the birds") on these occasions. But it was well nice, sitting in on the grass by that pond around Stockbridge having nothing to do, but in a delightful company. Nothing has really been sorted out, but things generally look better. I think I want to, I need to move on, if only to change scenery. To London, or to Glasgow: that is the question.



here's a showreel update, I think I made it around a month ago, but somehow never posted it online. I really need to think of publicity much more...

also, the degree show in the Filmhouse, where both of my degree films (I think, unless I change my mind, I wasn't sure about it first) will be screened is on the 13th of June. Check Filmhouse's website for ECA animation degree show.

8694

That's a rather random watercolour of characters from my degree film number 2, one of these things I make when I don't want to animate, and try to avoid feeling guilty for not being productive. Another think of this sort is this wee film I put together, using supportive materials I gathered so far. I'm well bad with documenting the process of making this film, I don't even have a sketchbook.



I used some Sarah Keeling's footage, and some of my own silly things here. Bits of work in progress, bits of final scenes, and such.