VISUAL PHOOEY!

UH OH!

2012-01-09T18:52:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012! Apologies for the massive gap in posting towards the end of last year. I was up to my beard finishing off a couple of short films for the Cartoon Network, doing some writing on the second season of Ben Bocquelet's fantastic show, the Amazing World of Gumball, as well as wading through a pile of lovely freelancing work thanks to my wonderful agents at Arena!

On top of all that I've also been massively busy packing and getting ready to leave behind the golden paved streets of London and relocate to the sun-shiny boulevards of LA. From late February myself and Rikke will be starting work at Dreamworks in Burbank as Story Artists. Sad to leave behind all the great people I know in London, but really looking forward to getting stuck into a new challenge and seeing what LA and the US has to offer!

In the meantime we've been on a bit of a holiday over New Year. Above is a lino-print/mixed media piece I did while staying with our delightfully retarded friends Bagga and Emily in Australia. And below is a sneak peek of some projects I've been working on that will hopefully surface some time in 2012. Keep your retinas peeled!

JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF MY BRAIN!

2012-01-09T18:45:00.000-08:00

Here's a selection of black and white illustrations I did last year for the inside of James Carter's poetry book, Journey to the Centre of My Brain.

ILL COMMUNICATION!

2011-07-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

A new editorial piece. The brief was to illustrate two little space monsters trying and failing to communicate with each other.

Tick, done!

ARTISTS VS EARTHQUAKES!!!

2011-05-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

The very talented Sylvain Marc and Paul Nicholson are organizing an event called 'Artists Vs Earthquakes' in London in aid of Artists Help Japan, a charity created by Pixar's Dice Tsutsumi. The opening night is from 7pm on Saturday 7th of May at Cafeand. There are a whole host of amazing artists from the worlds of animation and illustration exhibiting and selling their wonderful wares including Uli Meyer, Dice Tsutsumi, Sylvain Marc, Neil Ross, Veronique Joffre, Rikke Asbjorn, Dave Needham, Michael Schlingmann, Alan Kerswell, Matt Layzell, Rich Wake, Chris Sasaki, Matt Jones, David Z Greene, Mario Cavalli, Genevieve Godbout, Anotoine Birot, Boris Hiestand, Simon Tofield, Simone Lia, Pete Western, Paul Nicholson, Tom Gauld, Daniel Greaves...phew! And that's only touching the tip of the ever growing line up of phenomenal talent involved. Check out the blog here to see details of the exhibition, view the pieces and find out how you can bid on the great artwork on offer.

I've got three pieces in the exhibition. There's the one above which is a framed original Pinky Malinky comic (Arcylic and Ink on Heavy stock water colour paper, image size 38cm x 23.3cm). Then there's the two pieces below, Bubble Trouble (signed and framed 29.7cm x 42cm digital print) and Cheesey-Burger (signed and framed 29.7cm x 42cm digital print). Happy Bidding!!!

Also I'm happy to announce the amazing Rikke Asbjorn (creator of Little Rikke and The Furry Pals, as well as animator of the Gorillaz, the 'Monkey: Journey to the West' Opera and much commercial work for the award winning Passion Pictures and many other animation studios around London) has started a new blog and promises to update it with her brilliantly funny and ridiculously charming drawing and characters. Why don't you go over and say 'hey'!!!

She also has a great piece in the exhibition above, which if you don't buy it I will!

HOTDOG! IT'S PINKY MALINKY!!!

2011-04-27T05:38:00.001-07:00

Pinky Malinky is an animated short I created and directed as part of a series of six shorts produced at the Cartoon Network Development Studio Europe in 2009. As I said in the previous post, our brief was to create something short, funny and that could show potential for being developed further towards a TV series.

The main character Pinky is a 14 year old boy who awoke on his first day of High School to discover he's been transformed into a 3-foot tall hotdog sausage! It's a show about fitting in at High School, but with the added difficulty of being a quite literally a wiener!

The short was written alongside Rikke Asbjorn and shows Pinky trying to overcome his fear of the school bully, Barry Fistburger...all set to a Rock/Heavy Metal soundtrack!

Here are some screen shots from the short...

Here are the storyboards from the film. I did these in Photoshop then we put them together as an animatic. We then did layouts from the rough boards and animated it all in-house using a combination of Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator. The whole thing was then put together in After Effects.

Here's a bunch of design and early concept stuff from the show. The human character designs were worked up from Warwick Johnson Cadwell's initial brilliant concept designs.

A big thanks to CN for allowing us to produce these shorts, and a massive, hearty and well earned slap on the back to all the wonderful people who helped make it happen. Here are the credits...

Created and Directed by Chris Garbutt

Written by Chris Garbutt and Rikke Asbjorn

Storyboards - Chris Garbutt

Lead Animator - Rikke Asbjorn

Animation - Rich Wake

Art Director - Chris Garbutt

Compositing - Stephane Coedel

Editing - Lee Gingold

Voice Talent - Ben Small and Rasmus Hardiker

Music - Dave Newby

SFX and Final Mix - Hackenbacher

Big Thanks to - Steve Small, Charlie Bean, Matt Black, Alan Kerswell, Warwick Johnson Cadwell, Celine Desrumaux and Tim Bjorklund

Production - Angelica Jung-Woo, Joy Whilby and Jen Coatsworth

Exec Producers - Suzanne Berman and Daniel Lennard

THE FURRY PALS!!!

2011-04-27T04:35:00.001-07:00

The Furry Pals is an animated short created and directed by Rikke Asbjorn and produced at the Cartoon Network Development Studio Europe. I art directed the project as well as storyboarding and writing it alongside Rikke.

It was amongst six original shorts produced at the studio and our brief was simply to create something short, funny and that would show some potential to being developed further towards a TV series.

So Rikke's idea was basically about a gang of reckless, but lovable animal pals on an ill fated quest to help other creatures in need. Like the animal A-Team.

The short itself is really just a chase cartoon, but we expanded upon the larger concept in a mini-bible including character descriptions and some story synopsis that was also pitched to the network.

Here are the storyboards we produced for the short. These were then put into an animatic and then layouts were produced directly from the rough boards. The entire short was animated in Flash in-house at the studio.

These are a collection of backgrounds I produced for the short. They were all done in the photoshop and then the entire thing was composited in After Effects.

A huge, huge thanks goes out to the crew. Here are the credits...

Created and Directed by Rikke Asbjorn

Art Director - Chris Garbutt

Storyboards - Rikke Asbjorn and Chris Garbutt

Animation - Rikke Asbjorn, Valentina Ventiiglia and Gale Walton

Compositing - Celine Desrumaux

Editing - Jamie Foord

Voice Talent - Rob Rackshaw, Lewis Macleod and Charlie Bean.

Music and SFX - Dave Newby

Big Thanks to - Steve Small, Stephane Coedel, Tim Bjorklund and Clement Prigent

Production - Angelica Jung-Woo and Joy Whilby

Exec Producers - Daniel Lennard and Suzanne Berman

CARTOON NETWORK SHORTS!!!

2011-04-27T03:08:00.000-07:00

At last the shorts that we made at the Cartoon Network Development Studio in 2009 have been put online! They're on their own Youtube channel dedicated to the Development Studio.

Here's my short, Pinky Malinky. It's currently being considered for series at the Cartoon Network. I'll do a post dedicated to this short with artwork, BGs, storyboards and I can finally give a big shout out to the brilliant crew who worked on it. The viewer below is a little small so it can be viewed larger here...

This next one below is another of the shorts I worked closely on. It's called The Furry Pals, and was created and directed by the wonderfully talented Rikke Asbjorn, creator of Little Rikke. I'll also do a post about this one featuring artwork from the short. Again the viewer below is a little small so it can be viewed larger here...

Rikke also created and animated the little studio ident. at the end after the credits.

The other shorts on there are Dave Needham's Eliotts Zoo, Sylvain Marc's Verne On Vacation,Tom Parkinson's Hamshanks and Alan Kerswell's Mutant Moments.

They're all great so check them out!!!

TOE CHEESE CHIMPLE!!!

2011-03-12T05:50:00.000-08:00

Here's a selection of the final stinky-footed, bogey-filled artwork from There's An Alien In My Belly Button: The Toe Cheese Chimple! written by Hothouse Fiction and published by Egmont. The final cover they went with has a bright blue background, but I thought I'd post my favourite of the colour alternatives. There's going to be a series of these books, so keep your eyes and noses peeled!

TOE CHEESE CHIMPLE - PROCESS!!!

2011-03-06T03:44:00.000-08:00

I recently worked on a new kids book series, 'There's An Alien In My Belly Button' by Hothouse Fiction and Egmont. The first book, The Toe Cheese Chimple comes out in July. I did a full colour, wrap-around cover and approximately 30 black and white inside illustrations. Here's a quick look behind the scenes at the character development stage for the series.

Above are the concept designs for the main alien character, Binko. I began (with page 1 and 2) by throwing a bunch of different designs out there to help pinpoint, through a process of elimination, what the authors were looking for. Then we worked back and forth until the character evolved into what we have on page 4.

Next I had to nail the main human character Pete (see below). Again it was a case of trying various initial approaches (pages 1 through 5) based on reference and descriptions that the authors provided. Then, again working with the client's comments, I tweaked details like noses, ear sizes, hair-flicks, until we arrived at the design that everyone was happy with on page 9.

And lastly there's G-Bob. His final design eventually became a mix of the two different approaches below. Next I'll post a selection of final artwork from the book.

SPIROU COMIC!!!

2011-02-10T05:59:00.000-08:00

This is the 2 page comic I did for Spirou along with Sylvain Marc. I drew the main comic in the middle and Sylvain did the purple strip all around the edge. The theme was fantasy giving us a great excuse to draw barbarians, wizards, swords and other thoroughly enjoyable fantasy crap!

Below is a look at the behind-the-scenes process...

SPIROU COMIC - PROCESS AND DETAILS!!!

2011-02-10T05:53:00.000-08:00

As an excuse to air my dirty creative laundry in public I thought I'd give you a bit of a look at the process behind producing the 2 page comic I just did for Spirou.

First off I sketched out a REALLY rough layout. This gave myself a chance to work out the pacing, composition and because there's no real dialogue, just basically write the thing in drawings.

Next I refined the rough. I developed what the characters look like, posing, expressions and got stuck into more details.

Then I did a rough colour script. At this point I could discuss colour choices back and forth with Etienne who commissioned the piece and land on something we were both happy with.

And then the final piece...

Here it is with Sylvain's strip added around the edges. Hope you like it!! Below are some close-ups of some of the panels.

SPRIOU TEASER!!!

2011-01-23T05:39:00.000-08:00

Here's a little teaser from a two-page comic I produced for Spirou. I'll post the whole thing once it hits the news stands. The same issue will also feature some deliciously tasty contributions from Dave Needham, Sylvain Marc and Alan Kerswell, artists with whom I've had the displeasurable pleasure of working alongside for a very long time. Big thanks to Etienne Gilfillan for bringing it all together.

Speaking of Dave Needham, check out his new blog where he'll be ungracefully dumping his doodles onto the interweb for your viewing discomfort. I first met Dave when we were both 8 years old and we've been drawing together, fighting each other and generally embarrassing ourselves ever since. This is a cover we produced as an illustrative partnership for Oddbins Wine Merchants 2002 price guide.

WHAT THE?!

2011-01-20T04:06:00.000-08:00

This was produced for a fun project I was asked to take part in by Erika Medina. The fantastically talented Dave DeGrand also made a monstrous contribution!

MONKEY CAKE - PART 2!!!

2011-01-06T09:07:00.000-08:00

Here are details of the 'Animal Mix-Ups!!!' puzzle from the back of the Marks and Spencers cake box I did earlier last year.

KILL THE ELF!!

2011-01-06T09:02:00.000-08:00

I did this for a certain young Elf on the occasion of his birthday. And, with a tremendous shock to the system, I actually used REAL paint and brushes!!!!

MONKEY CAKE - PART 1!!!

2010-12-14T09:14:00.001-08:00

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of unleashing my scribbles on some cake packaging for Marks and Spencers in the UK. Here are the results! If you click on the second image of the full box wrap-around design you should be able to see the details more clearly.

SCRUFFERS!

2010-12-04T05:14:00.000-08:00

These are the two hairy shit bags that share our flat with us. The lady at the bottom likes licking plastic bags and the gentleman at the top enjoys eating sick.

POLLUTION MONSTER!

2010-11-07T07:09:00.000-08:00

Here are some rough colour set-ups and character designs I did for a commercial pitch earlier this year.

THE HIDEOUS AMPHIBO-MAN!!!

2010-11-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

GREETINGS EARTHLINGS - PART 2!!!

2010-10-28T05:06:00.000-07:00

Some more silly scribbles from the Greetings Earthlings kids book.

GREETINGS EARTHLINGS - PART 1!!!

2010-10-23T01:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a bunch of black and white illustrations I did last year for an Alien-themed kids book of poems called Greetings Earthlings published by Macmillan.

HIPPOPOTAMOUSE!

2010-10-16T07:41:00.000-07:00

Here are some designs that were pitched for a series of kids books featuring the results of animal cross-breeding! This one is what would happen if a mouse somehow mated with a hippo.

CHIMPS!!!

2010-10-10T14:00:00.001-07:00

These were produced as stickers for a book designed to help children with behavioral problems. The chimps had the unenviable task of helping the kids identify and understand different emotions etc.

MORE ILLUSTRATIONS!

2010-10-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

The top one was done for a poster to advertise a production at the Polka Theatre in London, and the bottom one was produced for an article about healthy eating in Sainsbury's magazine.

DOGHEAD!

2010-10-02T06:24:00.000-07:00

Here's some character illustration work I produced for Jill Marshal's children's book, Doghead, published by Macmillan in the UK. It's about a boy who is bitten by a stray dog in a graveyard and discovers he is destined to become Anubis, Egyptian god of the dead: half-human, half-jackal!

The top one is the artwork they used on the cover and the two pieces below are the rough character development work and potential poses for the cover.

SKETCHBOOK STUFF!

2010-09-25T04:00:00.001-07:00

My Illustration Agent recently asked me to do a post on their blog about Sketchbooks and what they mean to me. You can check out the post here. Below are some more sketchbook pages that they didn't have room to include in their post.

SOME OLD CHARACTER DESIGN STUFF!

2010-09-22T06:18:00.000-07:00

Here's some old character design/development stuff and an illustration of our cat, Dudu. You can buy a print of him here if your heart so desires! Nowadays he's about 5000% fluffier than he appears in that picture.

ILLUSTRATION MUNDO - INTERVIEW!

2010-09-18T05:31:00.001-07:00

Nate Williams recently asked me to do an interview for his fantastic website ILLUSTRATION MUNDO. If you want to find out more about me than you ever needed to know, then you can check out the interview here.

BILLY SWEET MONSTER!!

2010-09-18T05:24:00.001-07:00

Earlier this year the wonderfully talented TOUGUI kindly asked me to contribute a design to his range of Billy Sweet Monster paper toys. Here's the finished result! Follow the link to download the template and build one of your very own!

HEY!

2010-09-12T08:11:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the huge gap in posting. I've been VERY busy for the first half of this year working on a development for the Cartoon Network. It's based on a short I produced for them last year. Here are a few images from the short and a rough comic I did while developing the project. Huge thanks to Rikke Asbjorn, Stephane Coedel, Lee Gingold, Rich Wake, Warwick Johnson Cadwell, Alan Kerswell, Celine Desrumaux, Dave Newby, Timothy Bjorklund, Charlie Bean and Steve Small for all their fantastic help with the short.

BUBBLE TROUBLE!

2010-03-07T06:49:00.000-08:00

Here's a piece I did for an exhibition taking place at Leeds Metropolitan University from 12th - 31st March. It's part of their one day Survive Illustration Conference in conjunction with the AOI.

SLEEZE BURGER!

2010-02-26T09:56:00.001-08:00

ZOR OF THE BROKEN LANDS!

2009-11-02T16:19:00.000-08:00

8" x 10"

Crayons on Otter Pelt

EY UP!!!

2009-09-07T16:30:00.000-07:00

Hullo!! Sorry for the huge gap in postings. I've been ridiculously busy working on two new animated shorts that, hopefully, I'll be allowed to post on here at some point not too far in the future. In the meantime though, here are a couple of new things...

Above is a self-promotion piece to be published in next years Art Book.

This furry fella is for The Ark Project. A book project commissioning over 200 designers and illustrators from around the world to produce an image of a species from their native country. I chose the Red Squirrel. There's some great illustrators who took part in the project including Jon Burgerman, Tado, Ben Newman, Friends With You, Christian Montenegro and many, many more. Check it out and buy the book as apparently the money goes to charity. I can't remember which one but I'm pretty sure it's something to do with animals...

And lastly for now, I'm happy to say my illustration agent has started selling signed prints of my work. You can buy them online through my agent here. Hope you like them!

LITTLE RIKKE

2009-01-17T07:52:00.000-08:00

Here are the opening title sequence and end credits for a TV show pilot I co-directed with the show creator and massively talented Rikke Asbjorn (animator on the Gorillaz videos and Monkey Opera).
It's a product of my day job at the Cartoon Network Development Studio where we're currently developing shows for TV. We produce one eleven-minute super-animatic and colour bible for each show which are then pitched to our bosses at CN worldwide.

Unfortunately I'm not allowed to show the whole animatic here but I hope you like this little taster!

Created by Rikke Asbjorn

Opening Title
Co-directed by Rikke Asbjorn and Chris Garbutt
Storyboard - Chris Garbutt
Backgrounds - Sylvain Marc
Character Animation - Rikke Asbjorn, Sylvain Marc and Ben Marsaud
Compositing, Animation, Sound Supervision - Stephane Coedel

End Credits
Co-directed by Rikke Asbjorn and Chris Garbutt
Storyboard - Chris Garbutt
Character Animation - Rikke Asbjorn and Stephane Coedel
Compositing, Sound Design, Backgrounds - Stephane Coedel

Copyright2008 Turner Entertainment Networks International Limited

MONSTERS...

2008-09-14T10:49:00.001-07:00

A COUPLE OF SILLY-STRATIONS...

2008-09-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

HULLO AGAIN...

2008-09-14T10:35:00.001-07:00

More dribbling bumshine...

HULLO...

2008-09-14T05:03:00.001-07:00

Not posted in a while. It's been crazy busy at work. Here's a swift dose of scribbly poop that's been falling out of my pen recently...

CEREAL KILLERS COVER!

2008-03-16T07:44:00.000-07:00

Doktor Viktor Von Kreep of Kreepsville Industries kindly asked me to provide a cover for his upcoming cartoon art book CEREAL KILLERS and here's what I came up with...

Also the good Doktor interviewed me for his new CARTOON FUNLAND blog. Click on the link if you want to read my retarded waffling.

MIXED BAG OF GUFF!

2008-03-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

The first one was for a computer magazine article about multi-tasking. The second and third were both pitches, and the last bunch of monkeys were for a kids book.

ANIMATION - MORE ROBOTBOY BGS

2008-03-16T07:14:00.000-07:00

Trawling through the gloomy recesses of my computer's futuristic mind I stumbled upon some more BGs from Robotboy season one. Again I tip my hat to the great team of artists we had working with us.

All Robotboy images are copyright either Alphanim or Cartoon Network...

CEREAL KILLERS!

2008-02-24T08:25:00.001-08:00

A piece I did for a project called CEREAL KILLERS, a cartoon art book being put together by Viktor Von Kreep featuring many artists from the world of animation and illustration.

ASSORTED SILLYNESS

2008-01-26T05:05:00.000-08:00

CHARACTER DESIGN - YET MORE BEASTIES

2008-01-26T04:35:00.005-08:00

The bird in the first bunch is from the little bird project, a collective design project for UNICEF.

CHARACTER DESIGN - EVEN MORE BEASTIES

2008-01-26T04:20:00.003-08:00

The second one was for the recreate letoy competiton run by the Hidro Boys. The last one was for a pitch for Disney TV.

CHARACTER DESIGN - MORE BEASTIES

2008-01-26T04:13:00.000-08:00

The assassin character was designed along with Dave Needham.

CHARACTER DESIGN - VARIOUS BEASTIES

2008-01-26T04:07:00.000-08:00

CHARACTER DESIGN - MR O

2008-01-26T03:55:00.000-08:00

MR O character designed for ODDBINS by myself and Dave Needham.

MR O is copyright of ODDBINS Wine Merchants.

EDITORIAL ILLUSTRATIONS

2008-01-26T03:23:00.001-08:00

A bunch of editorial illustrations. The first one and the last two were for Fortean Times magazine, the middle ones were for PC Format and the second one was a self promotion piece.

KIDS BOOK - BEHIND THE STAFF ROOM DOOR

2008-01-26T03:19:00.000-08:00

Another kids book of poems for Macmillan.

KIDS BOOK - GOLD STARS

2008-01-26T03:13:00.000-08:00

KIDS BOOK - TAKING OUT THE TIGERS

2008-01-23T00:36:00.003-08:00

Illustrations for a kids book of poems published by Macmillan.

KIDS BOOK - MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DON'T

2008-01-20T15:50:00.000-08:00

COMICS - B.U.M. 5000 THE ROBO HOBO

2008-01-20T12:13:00.001-08:00

A one pager for Jamie Smart's upcoming comics anthology, Fat Chunk published by Slave Labour Graphics.

COMICS - LOCO LEMUR

2008-01-20T12:09:00.000-08:00

A two page strip I did back in 1998 for Mike Manley's Action Planet Comics.

ANIMATION - VARIOUS

2008-01-20T11:33:00.000-08:00

Various pitches for TV shows and ads. The first and third were for Disney TV in the U.S. and the second one was for Studio A.K.A. in London.

(The last one could possibly be copyright to Disney TV, so I'd better say it is as the Mouse has much scarier lawyers than me.)

ANIMATION - ROBOTBOY

2008-01-20T10:54:00.001-08:00

Here's some backgrounds from Robotboy. I fart directed the first season, again alongside Dave Needham, for the Cartoon Network at comedy animation studio, Alphanim in Paris.

Thanks to genuine Frenchman, Richard Depres, Baptiste, Magali and the rest of the BG team.

Images are probably copyright to either Alphanim or Cartoon Network, not sure which...

ANIMATION - GOOD KID BAD KID

2008-01-20T10:38:00.001-08:00

Here's a bunch of stills and backgrounds from GOOD KID BAD KID, a Flash pilot myself and Dave Needham made for the Cartoon Network back in 2002.

EY UP!

2008-01-20T07:58:00.000-08:00

Put the kettle on and pull your trousers up to your armpits while I parade my unshaven wares all over the internet...