Matthew Ellison Animation

Brand New Look, Brand New Stuff

2008-08-18T20:29:00.005+01:00

Well, it's been a hell of a long time since I posted anything, but hopefully this time I'll manage to keep it up. I've started work on a new short film, so I'll be able to post something worthwhile every now and again. Here are five background shots from my new film, two finished and three roughs. I'll have a few more rough shots to post in the next day or two. If you open the pictures in a new window, you be able to see them in better quality. For some reason the first picture has some bits missing. I'll try to put a better version up soon.

EDIT: Fixed it. Uploaded a Bitmap version instead of a PNG. Don't know why that makes a difference, all the rest are PNG.

Showreel 130807

2007-08-13T22:13:00.000+01:00

Fat guy run - fixed

2007-06-06T17:42:00.000+01:00

Walk Cycle- With Added Inbetweens!

2007-06-01T20:13:00.000+01:00

Walk Cycle

2007-05-31T16:48:00.000+01:00

Puppet madness!

2007-04-23T21:09:00.000+01:00

Some better pictures of the first puppet I made, and also some pictures of a pirate puppet I made for some friends.

More Models

2007-04-23T20:45:00.000+01:00

Some more pictures of the models I've been making. Really very pleased with the boy puppet, but the pirate one could have used a little more planning.

Slightly better picture....

2007-03-31T12:39:00.000+01:00

Another Puppet!

2007-03-25T21:05:00.000+01:00

Puppet!

2007-03-17T13:19:00.000Z

Models

2007-03-16T22:52:00.000Z

Pirate Film Animatic

2007-01-12T14:15:00.000Z

Hello! I've drawn up the storyboards for a new film idea, let me know what you think.

Pirate Walk Cycle- In Colour!

2007-01-03T19:29:00.000Z

The coloured Pirate walk cycle.

Pirate Walk Cycle

2006-12-28T16:05:00.000Z

This is a walk cycle test for a film idea I am trying to work on. Just a rough version at the moment, I'm going to try and drop some colour in later.

Wobot Test

2006-11-18T15:46:00.000Z

This is a kind of a character test for a short film idea I had, and also a chance for me to play with my new wacom tablet in Toon Boom as well. I'm in the process of tidying it up and geting the timing just right before I put any colour in.

Bout' bloody time too....

2006-11-02T17:15:00.000Z

I'm finally working on something new, so here is the start of it. It's for a music video, and this is a walk cycle for the start of it. Hopefully I will have an animatic up soon. The clip is blank for a couple of seconds at the start, and it looks a bit odd because it is in time with a piece of music that I neglected to include. Sorry.

LOST= Thomas The Tank Engine= Star Wars

2006-07-06T23:49:00.000+01:00

Matt says:
thanks. got to wait to see what wendy and the others say about it now.
joe says:
is it the same others from lost?
Matt says:
yes. if they like it i get to leave the island. and find out what the smoke creature is.
Matt says:
i think its a snake with a wind problem
joe says:
hahaha
joe says:
i think it's a tiny steam engine
joe says:
but no one looks at the floor
Matt says:
hahaha
Matt says:
a demon thomas the tank engine
joe says:
like diesel, that evil one?
Matt says:
yeah. think of diesel as the emperor, and thomas as anakin skywalker.
joe says:
haha
joe says:
is yoda the fat controller?
Matt says:
makes sense. does that make annie and calarabel luke and leia?
joe says:
it better do
joe says:
is ringo starr obi wan?

Nothing Much To Say...

2006-06-05T01:22:00.000+01:00

Not much going on at the moment. The film is finished and has been handed in, so we are just kicking our heels until the show starts on friday. Hopefully myself and a couple of others will be travelling down to London on Tuesday to visit the Pixar exhibition while we have some free time. Can't wait!!!!

As I don't have anything to post at the moment, here is a favourite film of mine called 'Broken Down Film' (1985). It is by Osama Tezuka, who is famous for Astro Boy, Metropolis and a whole host of other shows and comic books. I first saw this film in 2004 at the Bradford Animation Festival, and I've just been able to find it on YouTube. Enjoy!!

Show Reel

2006-05-21T22:34:00.000+01:00

This is my current show reel- a mixture of uni and work experience stuff. The file size is on the large size so be patient while it loads but I guess it depends on your computer. I'd like as much criticism as possible, so feel free to tell me how rubbish it is.

Work Experience Walks

2006-05-13T20:43:00.000+01:00

These are a few of the walk cycles that I did while I was at HOT Animation last year. (They do Bob the Builder). I've got more clips that I hope to put up someday. Also trying to get my showreel up, but I'm trying to get it to a more manageable size. At the moment it's about 50mb so I'm trying to get it smaller without sacrificing too much of the quality.

Fourth Scene FINAL

2006-05-04T20:52:00.000+01:00

That's it, the last scene of my film. I might update with the final versions of the first two scenes. All I need to do now is record the background noise for the second scene and make the credits. I've been asked to experiment with shadows on the scenes as well, which I'm going to try with a single frame from the first scene. Don't know how I'm going to do it yet, but it'll have to be someway that it relatively simple to do, as I'll have to do it for every scene if I decide to use it.

Third Scene FINAL

2006-05-04T20:28:00.000+01:00

This is the third scene from my film, I'll be uploading the fourth and final scene in a few minutes.

Roughs Finished!!!

2006-04-22T19:09:00.000+01:00

Thats it! I've done the rough passes on all the scenes now. I've got to refine the animation on all the scenes, with the second and third scenes (Drugs and War) needing the most.

I think I'll try to put together the scenes with the title slates and the MIDI music I've got (no licensing needed, hee hee hee). I'll try to put up parts, if not all, of the War and Religion scenes soon.

Templates

2006-04-20T15:09:00.000+01:00

Two templates; one from Facts of Life and one from Drugs. I use these in Toon Boom to help me draw the separate body parts.

The Floor Master

2006-04-14T16:02:00.000+01:00

Well I've now put a floor plane into the scenes, SOMEBODY thought the girl was floating a bit. Thanks Doug, making me do more work........grumble grumble

Second Scene Rough Pass

2006-04-06T15:38:00.000+01:00

Click here to watch 'Drugs-12'

I'm not Dead........

2006-04-06T13:50:00.000+01:00

Sorry for not updating in a while, call it a combination of work and laziness. The film is going well. I believe I'm just over half-way though the film and I'm currently working on the third scene. I'm also trying to get some music sorted out. We have the opportunity to show our films in the university cinema, but unfortunately this means that the music we use has to be fully licensced for use. This means that I can't use the piece of music I wanted unless a can buy a license for it.

The above picture is to show how I am working on this film. I make the seperate body parts and put some of them on the same layer, i.e. the arms and legs. This way I can put a rotation point at the joints to get a good sense of arm movement. I'll be putting up the rough pass I made of the second scene shortly. I still need to go over it again and put in the cat and the other small bits of animation (eyebrows, blinks).

Now With Extra Catty Goodness!!!

2006-03-06T15:29:00.000Z

No new footage this week, I've been working on the design for the cat which I've put into the first scene. Should have some more footage next week.

Facts of Life Part Two

2006-02-27T22:48:00.000Z

Here is the first scene of my film so far. It's not complete. There will be a cat somewhere and I think I will refine the animation a bit more. Gonna start work on the next scene this week. As for this blog, I'm going to try to update at least once a week.

Facts Of Life Part One

2006-02-27T22:32:00.000Z

First Scene Part Six

2006-02-20T13:43:00.000Z

First Scene Part

2006-02-18T21:53:00.000Z

This is the first fourteen seconds of the first scene of the film. This is how the film will look in its finished version, though the animation may be tweaked slightly.

New Test

2006-02-11T20:06:00.000Z

This is a re-working of the previous test using Toon Boom instead of Moho. As this is a flash version, the textures are much clearer and sharper than the avi version. Now that I don't have to worry about tweening now, I think that the movement of the character is much better now.

EDIT: Looks like the video wasn't working. Fixed it now. The sound is slightly out of sync, but I may be able to fix that later.

New Version

2006-02-11T19:53:00.000Z

I have decided to use a different program to produce my film. Rather than use Moho, I will now be using Toon Boom Studio 3. I have more experience using Toon Boom, so although I don't think I will be able to make the film faster, I do now feel more at ease doing the animation.

Life Drawing

2006-02-06T00:45:00.000Z

Life Drawing picture I did for SketchTavern.

Fact of Life Animatic

2006-02-05T22:17:00.000Z

This is the animatic for the first scene of my film 'How To Talk To Your Kids About Almost Anything'. I made this before Christmas as I wanted something that I could put the actors voices into in order to work out the best set of voices. Comments and Criticisms are welcome.

EDIT: Just a note. The file is quite large (11.6mb) so it may take a while to load.

Facts Of Life

2006-02-05T21:56:00.000Z

Just finished building the first scene in Photoshop so I can export it into Moho. The hands are photographs of mine and my sister's hands, with a cutout effect put on them. I'm not too sure how well they will look in the finished product, so I'll have to wait and see.

More Sketchbook Stuff

2006-02-02T21:46:00.000Z

More early stuff from when I was trying to create the characters for my film. The film is progressing smoothly so far. I worked out the lip sync for the first scene a few days ago. Now I need to build the characters up in Moho and I should be able to start animating in a week or so. I may put up the animatic for the first scene as soon as I get a chance.

Test for Film

2006-01-26T21:42:00.000Z

A test to see how easy it would be to animate in the style I have chosen and also to learn how to use Moho. It's not perfect (bloody tweening) so I need to play around with it to stop it being so smooth.

Kitty!

2006-01-26T21:18:00.000Z

There is a cat in the last scene, but I realised that I don't know how to draw cats properly. One Google search later= cat sketches.

Sock Puppets

2006-01-24T19:51:00.000Z

This is a short Animation that I made last year towards the end of my 2nd Year at University. It was hand-drawn on paper and scanned into Premiere. I was really happy with the way this turned out as I was animating without too much planning for most of it.

Nearly At The Final Version

2006-01-24T19:29:00.000Z

The Nearly Nearly Final Version

Ignore the stick arms and legs, I'm not using them. But the characters do basically look like that.

Early Sketchbook Stuff

2006-01-24T19:11:00.000Z

Early designs for the Child Character

Experimenting with different Hair and Eyes

Nearly the Final Version

Doug's Two Old Bachelors

2006-01-24T19:00:00.000Z

A quick post to point you towards my friends blog, which is in the Links list, and also here. Doug is also on my course, and is using an Edward Lear poem for the basis of his film. Go look at it. He needs the encouragement.

The Beginning

2006-01-24T18:39:00.000Z

Welcome to the start of my new blog. This blog will initially be used to document the making of my 3rd year film, titled 'How to Talk to Your Kids About Almost Anything'. The script/story was written by Wendy Molyneux, the original of which can be found here. This film will form the final film of my animation degree, which I am doing at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. Hopefully you will enjoy my work.