I'm an Australian animator from Melbourne living and working in Halifax, Canada.
Currently Animation Supervisor for Copernicus Studio Inc., I amuse myself by terrifying the locals with ukulele fuelled spontaneous sing-alongs and using snow as shaving equipment.
If you want to see more you can check out webbot15.com, and we've also got a nice bunch of links below that'll take you wherever you want to go.
Hey howdey hey!
This month, Loop De Loop teamed up with YEAH (Youth Empowerment Against HIV/AIDS) and celebrated with the theme of Condoms. This is my submission. A musical Public Service Announcement about the benefits of wearing a condom. It has sock puppets, awkward pauses and references to 'junk'.
And yes, I both wrote and sung the song. The drummer from Rise from Ruin was kind enough let me record his drumming for this. Also, he's my little brother, so I would've told on him to Mum if he didn't.
In similarly related news, it's Spring. And the trees near my apartment are spreading their seed.
In other other news, I'll be attempting a blog post every day for the month of December. Whether it be a drawing or animation or something else, I don't know. But it'll be something.
Hope you're all having a grand day,
-Daniel
I've just come back from watching the Back to the Future Trilogy on the big screen. And as well as revelling in how arse-kickingly awesome those movies are (Seriously, Robert Zemekis used to make cinema. Unlike the whatever it is he tries to make now), it really took me back to the childhood roots of who I am. (This is gonna be a text heavy flashback, so feel free to scroll down to the pictures and video. Seriously, don't feel bad. I'm guilty of it too.)
Growing up the chubby asthmatic kid I was (and continue to be) I wanted to be Doctor Emmett L. Brown. He made soooo many cool things out of his garage and was always so enthusiastic about everything. He could do anything, and science was his tools to creation.
In grade three I was rocking up to school with solar kits and crystal radio sets, by grade six I'd fixed and revamped a rotary style phone in a classy classy wooden box case. And who has two thumbs and used to sit behind the portables tinkering with a radio he disassembled and re-assembled into his lunchbox? Yo...
Oh it was great fun. I even went on a two day science camp thing in year nine where we learned about robots and made borax based slime (No more crummy cornstarch based gunk for us!) Then something interesting happened. All the while as I'd been sciencing it up I'd been drawing and doodling and at some point I realised a fantastic truth. Leaving it on paper is SO much easier than actually making it work. Even looking back at it now, animating a frog turning into a hair-dryer is infinitely simpler than getting ti to happen with science. Even on ONES it's be easier.
Long story short, Back to the Future I, II and II plus laziness equals the animator you see today.
Oh, here's a sketch dump before I bury you in text again.
I dunno... I guess I've been thinking a lot about myself lately. As it turns out I've been making banner ads for a full year now and the void of creativity that comes with it has been taking its toll.
A fantastically wise person pointed out to me recently that I brighten up when I talk about animation, and I do. I really do. The high point of my Friday at work was when one of my colleagues who's recently become a dad didn't know what the 'ladybugs picnic' animation from sesame street was. At which point I found a link to it, wrote a short speil on Bud Luckey and concluded the email with a link to Pixar's Boundin'. (which he also did)
Following that high I (well, once work ended) I rode around until I was good and lost, found a park and recorded the following:
Uke's bring their own sunshine to things. I've been practising a lot more lately, especially walking up and down Chapel Street.
Anyways, my venting seems to be loosing momentum and direction. Both very good things for a vent to loose.
I'll end tonight with an image I've had on my drive for a while now. When I first made this I was too scared to post it anywhere, not for fear of criticism, but for darker and more ridiculous reasons. Reasons that've been ranted about enough in other forums.
Enjoy that those reasons are gone! I certainly do :D
Hope everyone's having a great weekend,
I promise, next post'll be back to regular scribbly drivel.
-Daniel
Hey howdey hey!
So this is my loop for Loop de Loops theme of 'Monsters'. This theme was probably about two or three months ago... sorry. Just hadn't had a chance to upload it.
Voices kindly donated my my brother and his girlfriend. Actually, while I've got you here, my little brother is a wicked awesome drummer. He's helped me out a couple of times with drumming for my animations and such. here and here are good examples.
Well his band recently recorded an ep: http://risefromruin.bandcamp.com/ It rocks pretty hard. You should check them out :D
Hope everyone's having a great start to the week!
-Daniel
Heya everyone, Sorry for the lack of blog updates for the past...month... Things've been really hectic and I'm only now just reclaiming my life. Quick rundown of the past 20-ish days: I've moved out of home and into an awesome shoebox in the middle of the city, I'm in the middle of learning new songs on the Ukulele (going as far as trying to put steel strings on a uke. It sounds awesome!) and I'm animating on a kick arse pilot (outside of regular boring/regular-income work)
Oh, and I also grew and shaved off my beard. Which brings us tooooo...
You can't waste a perfectly good beard, Video number 4!
Shot on a Canon 1100 DSLR. Audio recorded on a Behringer Podcasting kit hooked up to Audacity. Had some real fun adding extra layers of sound effects and actually replacing the whole middle sections audio from scratch. (bathroom fan was on...)
I still haven't posted my animated monster loop from two months ago, so expect that soon. Also spooky loop'll be coming up soon, as well as video's of me covering songs (hopefully well, possibly badly) Also, now that I have my own place, I should get to draw a lot more.
Anyways it's about time for bed. Hope everyone's having a truly fantastic week! -Daniel
