About me

My life so far has revolved heavily around art, sport and education.

I have always been an enthusiastic artist and am so interested in art that I have the ability to learn new techniques within all aspects of art quickly. My inspiration to study Animation with Special Effects at Leeds Metropolitan University came from a love of films and comedy from a young age.  I have always been creative and have spent hours designing characters, making storyboards and creating flip books.  Whilst at university I have developed my skills and techniques and can now transform some of my many ideas into CG format.  Watching a character grow that I have created and bringing it to life is very rewarding. I find myself constantly studying the way people move, particularly their subtle movements and those between people as I transpose theses movements into my own animated creations. I have become familiar with software such as 3DS Max, Z Brush, After Effects, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator and  have developed my skills using these software’s  whilst I have been studying at Leeds Metropolitan University over the past three years.

I love to play sport, especially football, and from a young age have enjoyed consistent success with several local football teams. The competitive streak in me makes me always strive to achieve the best I can and also helped my ability to keep moral within a team and take control of challenging situations.

Education is important to me as is personal development

Illustrations/Cartoons.

From a young age I have drawn and designed my own style of characters. I love to draw and am constantly designing new characters to use for personal projects. I believe my drawings are of a professional standard. Below are a selection of characters that I have drawn over the years to showcase my abilities as a cartoonist.

Since being at university I have also developed my skills as an Illustrator and have become comfortable using software such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.  These help me take my designs and drawings to the next professional level. Below are some examples of character designs vectored and coloured. There are also more examples further down my blog.

Bin Weevils Designs

I heard about www.binweevils.com via a job search on animation base. After reading the job criteria I felt that this job was perfect for me. I have had many years experience drawing cartoons and lifelike portraiture and believe my skills as an artist can adapt to any drawing based job. I have also created my own Interactive programme as apart of a university project. This was an interactive CD ROM that teaches Sign Language to young deaf children using animation. I also have experience in key frame animation and understand the concept of animation well as I studied animation with special effects at Leeds Metropolitan University.

Below are some of my own Bin Weevil designs. Each of these characters could be used to front a new game to add to the string of activities available on the Bin Weevils website.

Pirate Weevil

Wizard Weevil

Cowboy Weevil

Farmer Weevil

Chair designs.

For design purposes I decided to draw some items and objects that keep with the style and the overall look of the Bin Weevils world. I looked through aspects of the Bin Weevils items for research as well as doing some research on other websites. I began designing a number of possible chairs to be drawn within a Bin Weevils ‘nest’.

1. Chair design:

I liked this design the most as I felt it was simple and effective. It still has the fun element as it has a face on the front of the chair. This makes the chair more inviting for children. I feel the design of this chair is very gender neutral given the colour scheme could work well in any Bin Weevils nest.

2.Shoe design:
I drew this based on a design I had seen. I like the fun element of turning an everyday object into a larger object used for a different purpose. This design is more gender specific which is why I chose not to use it for my final application. 



3 Face chair design:

The face design was just an idea from a chair I previously owned as a child. Looking at the chair made me feel happy and the back of the chair (the eyes) were interchangeable to express different moods. I feel happy eyes are appropriate for the design.

4.Modern chair design:

I drew a modern and simple design for this chair and I feel that this could be used in a busy ‘nest’ or a cleaner ‘nest’ and still be effective. The back and the cushion could have a variety of styles and textures to make it more fun and suit different ‘nests’. I decided not to use this in my application because I was unsure how the arched top would affect the avatar’s (weevils) ability to get in and out of the seat.

5. Briefcase design:

The briefcase design came from a design I had seen on the internet. I feel like it is very cool, fun and again plays with the idea of turning everyday objects into tables and chairs etc. It is quite a complex design to view at first and didn’t want it to take any focus away from other items within the room. It was this reason I decided not to use it in flash. The colours could again be changed to suit the individual ‘nest’. Also the size could be changed so it could be lengthened into a couch or remain as a chair. I avoided arms on this chair to make it easier entry for the avatar (weevil).







Portraiture



I first started drawing portraits in 2006 and have continued to increase the quality of my portraiture skills ever since. These drawings show off my talents in its finest detail and show my versatility as an artist. It was through drawing portraits that I knew that I would like to utilize my skills as an artist in any way possible. Below are some celebrities that I have drawn throughout my life.

Oasis



Rhianna

Will Smith

Noel Edmonds

Carl Barat, Pete Doherty



Cheryl Tweedy



John Lennon

Alan Sugar

LSL Hands On - Interactive Programme that teaches Sign Language to young deaf children

LSL HANDS ON

For my university group project I created an Interactive CD ROM that teaches young deaf children sign language using animation. I worked with one other person and my roles where to design and create the images to use within the product and to create the overall layout. I designed the character first then drew him in different scenarios that represent the category of words that were being taught within the product. For example the image of the character in the bunny costume was created for the “animals” page. I scanned in the images and used Adobe Illustrator to vector them. I then used Adobe Photoshop to colour in and shade the images. I also added highlights. This left the product looking more professional. I based all my designs and colours on research that I had done for a previous project.