Til All Are Won!

The first official teaser trailer for the project I've been working on has finally dropped!

May I introduce Transformers: CYBERWORLD a brand new YouTube web-series from Hasbro Studios UK.

I've been working on this for nearly 10 months at this point and I've not been able to talk about it at all. But my name is on the IMDb and the show is officially announced so I am copping up to it.

I developed the show for series from a concept (and toyline) provided by the team at Hasbro, and I am the Head Writer for the 36 episode run.

It's so very exciting and I'm so pumped to share the show with the fandom and world. The first episode premieres on 12th July this year - just over a month away. We're still in the thick of production (and will be well up until the finale) but it's coming to life!

I've already seen the first few episodes coming together and hopefully you all love it as much as we do. The team is fantastic, the cast is brilliant, I can't wait for people to see what we've all worked so hard to produce.

Big love and big thank.

Sad Firetruck Noise 🚒

 It would seem that the show reboot I was writing for has moved production internally. There are still 3 and a half episodes I wrote that have not yet been produced - if they make it to launch I will update here.

My services as an animatic artist and writer are still available to those interested. Example below:

Utter Balls

Been working on a classic "bouncing ball" animation for a sing-a-long video.

Client provided the video, I merely transcribed the lyrics and overlaid them with the custom animation.

WiP screenshot w/ Onion Skinning

Sample of the finished animation

NEW SHOWREEL

This is my 2016 showreel, which also handily gives a rundown of most of the projects I've been working on during late 2015-16.

Showreel - Ali Lightfoot (2016) from Ali Lightfoot on Vimeo.

It's not MY Life

I've got an in-house job at a company/campaign called Your Life. It's ostensibly video editing work, but I will post any animation-based updates on here as they come.

Strolling

As part of an application for an animator position, a company asked me to complete a walk cycle, based on a character they'd already drawn up.
I didn't get the job, in the end but I thought I'd post the cycle I did anyway.

The art was copyrighted to them, so I've created rough alternative parts to replace their original pieces. This is purely for the purposes of showing off the animation I did.
Because I've replaced the parts, everything looks a great deal rougher.

I'm not sure if they choppiness is due to lag or the difference in framerate between the original and the .gif.

 It was interesting, because I'd not really done such tween-heavy animation before, but I was pleased with how it came out. Especially for only about a day's efforts.

Book It

I just finished the final touches to my "Gilliam Animation", which I've tentatively titled Book - for want of a better name - and uploaded to Vimeo.

(You can see it here.)

It's taken me far too long to complete, what with laziness, tedium, losing a load of work and being put off and having to find the right live-action elements to include. But it's done.

It's almost ironic that the part of the process I knew the least about and had never attempted before, took me the least amount of time. I started this morning and finished a short while ago. (That was compositing the animation with the live footage of the book.)

I think it worked out well too, considering I took the lazy approach and avoided using After Effects and masks - instead winging it with the limited effects in Premiere and a prayer that the clumsy edits won't be noticeable during viewing. (I don't think they are.)

I'm actually incredibly pleased with how it's come out. Especially how well I managed to make digitally animated scans, combined with footage of a blank page, look like closeup shots of an actual book.
It was challenging given the inconsistent colouring of a lot of the source images (that I probably should've corrected at the first stage rather than last) and I ended up using a lot more and far different effects than I imagined when I first conceptualised it.
In particular not being able to chroma key the image backgrounds and having to add digital shadows to mimic those of the page-turn to make them more seamless.

Below are some screenshots to pique your interest/allow me to show off.

I had to write a load of nonsense to make the scenes look more like real book pages. They're not even complete sentences; there's nothing before the left edge of the shot.

I'm not going to pretend that I don't think I'm a genius for adding a layer of mirrored text to emulate the look of the adjoining page showing through the paper.

I think the overall effect is convincing. I'd believe this is a photo of a book page, and I KNOW that I made it.

 

My Winter In April

A group project I worked on with Dan Farmer and Julia Konieczna. Based on Shakespeare's Sonnet No. 98.

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leapt with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
   Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,
   As with your shadow I with these did play.

There was deep compromise on many factors, given the three different schools of thought that went into producing this, but I'm not unhappy with the final result. I may return to the project to realise my own interpretation, though.

You Me Brum Brum Train

Whilst working on the animation project, in the wake of my drawing trip to Birmingham, I created this short animation from my train tickets and recordings I made while travelling/in the station.