Woolly Logic T-Shirts

Last week I did a couple of digital doodles in the style of printed circuit boards, posted them on facebook and it turned out that people liked them enough to want them printed on t-shirts. If you too want a PCB robot or skeleton emblazoned across your chest, then you can buy one in my Spreadshirt shop, Woolly Logic here:

http://woollylogic.spreadshirt.co.uk/

Walter Gloom

Head over to the Walter Gloom blog or to my flickr album to see more photos my newest puppet, Walter Gloom. Puppet designed by James Geard.

Check out Edna!

My new puppet:



Full details and more photos on the Watler Gloom blog:

http://waltergloom.blogspot.com/2010/06/unveiling-edna.html

Long Overdue News Update

Again I have been absent from blogging for far too long - sorry about that. This is just a brief update of noteworthy things that have happened since my last post.

First up, the music video for Smile by The Leano was released in January and I went to the launch night in London which was a lot of fun and involved a variety of great live music.
If you haven't seen the video, here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBuRbw-lIqI

Loads of animators from around the world worked on it, including Don Carlson and Mike LeTendre. The singing spotty alien blobs section is mine. I think the whole thing was a fantastic project and I love the end result. All profits from the album sales are going to a charity helping displaced kids in Sri Lanka, so it's for a good cause too.

Most people reading this blog will have already seen the finished international stop-motion co-op film 'First Time Parents', but for anyone who hasn't:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRfb7TrpGak

I am so impressed by it! Even though people from all over the world worked on it without having ever meeting each other, the whole thing is very coherent. All the puppets and props that Emily Baxter and I made for it fit in perfectly with John Hankins' sets and props, and the whole film has a very friendly atmosphere to it. John's animation is amazing as always, and the music is brilliant.
I am rather in love with this animation and the woolly family it features. Emily's Mommy monster is quite obviously a soulmate for the Daddy puppet I made and I am very glad they found each other.

I am still working on making things for Walter Gloom and I intend to update that blog very soon with puppet building photos. Until then...

Things are happening at the Walter Gloom blog...

Puppet building has started for Walter Gloom, and there are photos up on the Walter Gloom blog. Go on, have a look, you know you want to!

New studio!

Sorry about my long absence from blogging folks - it has been due in part to the mammoth task of moving house. Daz and I have one Hell of a lot of stuff (mainly comics, books, DVDs and art equipment) which all had to be moved the 100 yards to the new house by hand, mainly by myself as Daz has been working down south for the last few months. I now have a new studio (yes, another spare bedroom) which is not only much bigger than my old studio, but also has the advantage that it doesn't double as Daz's junk room like my old studio did.

Here are a few photos of my new studio space:




'Monday to Friday' has been put on hold for the moment, and I have started work on the puppets for the Walter Gloom film that I am working on with writer/director James Geard. I will be posting images of the process I have used to make the puppet heads for the film over at the Walter Gloom blog in the next few days. Now I have to be off again, the heads need another coat of latex...

Two woolly monsters emigrate to Hawaii...

Here are some photos of the two woolly monster puppets I made to send to John Hankins (castlegardener) as part of the international animation co-op. They are provisionally called 'Dad' and 'Toddler'. I'm afraid the lighting and focus in the photos is not great - I took them in a hurry under yellowish a light with no flash.

The Dad is a little smaller than my usual puppets, and is about 10 inches tall, the Toddler is tiny, just over 4 inches tall, and had to be made using miniature crochet with a 1mm hook.

Both puppets have aluminium armature wire and epoxy putty armatures which I wrapped with polyfibre wadding stuck in place with Copydex latex glue (one of the most versatile mediums in the world). The skins are made of hand crocheted yarn, acrylic and wool/acrylic blend in the case of the Dad puppet, and very fine angora/lambswool blend for the Toddler. The armature for the father had to be completed in stages after certain parts of the woolly skin had been sewn into place, otherwise the hands would have been too big to pass through the 'sleeves' of the skin.

The mouths are felt replacements, and other details are made using buttons and fluffy pom-poms. As usual I used french knitting (done on a circular four-pin bobbin) for Dad's fingers, which are threaded over latex and wool wrapped wire fingers.