JoJo & Gran Gran (seasons 2 & 3)
After animating on season 1 of JoJo & Gran Gran it was a pleasure to come back in a design role! I got to design some new environments, characters - including costumes and background statics, and props - including posing characters in Toon Boom and building upon them to create the many photos JoJo and Gran Gran take.
As lead my focus was often less on creating new assets myself, but on doing more technical breakdowns for other departments, addressing callouts, and supervising the rest of the team to ensure our work was the best it could be.
Backgrounds
Props & Characters
Illustration for a photo seen in the backgrounds of S2 episode, "It's Time to Go on a Voyage!"
JoJo & Gran Gran utilises static characters to populate certain backgrounds. Here's a few of the static characters created for the episode "It's Time to Visit St Lucia"
We needed to see a lot of new faces in the Airport special episode, a lot of whom I had the pleasure of creating.
I designed JoJo's cousin Lexi - her hair was very important to everyone involved in production and had to both look good and be riggable in Toon Boom Harmony.
The Conductor character appears in Season 3 of JoJo & Gran Gran.
For the season 3 episode "It's Time to Braid Hair" we wanted a real focus on the character's hair braiding process. This was a real challenge for rigging and animation, so in collaboration with them I created this reference.
Redress of JoJo with her swimsuit, with and without arm floaties, presented for rigging.
A test of a proposed colourway for JoJo's swimsuit against all the colours we'd see her around in the episode.
Hairy Phonics
While at Nessy I got to create assets for their Hairy Phonics games. I'm particularly proud of the colour work I had the chance to do when coming up with the 4 sets of backgrounds for their "Yeti Fingers" game.
Panning background to be used in Nessy's "Hairy Phonics" mobile app.
Background & asset design, including states for the characters to be animated in.
Set of backgrounds to be used in the "Yeti Fingers" segment of Nessy's "Hairy Phonics" mobile app.
Better view of one of the previously shown backgrounds.
A full mockup with screen safe asset placement for a mobile game.
Set of backgrounds to be used in the "Yeti Fingers" segment of Nessy's "Hairy Phonics" mobile app.
Better view of one of the previously shown backgrounds.
Better view of one of the previously shown backgrounds.
Incredible Ant (season 1)
Incredible Ant, a series created for Alibaba Group. I worked with the incredible team at Wildseed Studios as a Lead Props Artist to help bring the vibrant world of Xiao Yi and his friends to life.
Please note: Only the prop designs are mine. The character designs and storyboards pictured are not my work, and used as reference only.
A bazooka used by the Spider Brothers that launches a net, depicted in various stages of use and a couple of angles needed for this episode.
The web deployed by the Netzooka.
The client was very keen on a mixture of cultures to be depicted in various aspects of the show, in addition to the Chinese culture it's rooted in. This is showcased even in things such as the food on this trolley.
Incredible Ant's world was quite complex - hi-tech and recycled at the same time, it is inhabited by bugs that adapt objects from the human world to create things such as this stoplight, but also have their own technology (such as the car).
More vehicles from the Incredible Ant world, increasing in size.
Even more vehicles!
In addition to more straightforward props, I was also responsible for creating graphics visible on screens, sometimes in a pixel art style like this plan.
Not all graphics were in a pixel art style, such as these phone graphics that the animators later added extra life into.
Twin Temple - Let's Have A Satanic Orgy!
I was commissioned by LA band Twin Temple to direct and produce a music video for the English & Spanish versions of their song "Let's Have A Satanic Orgy!" referencing 1930s animation, the band's 60s doo-wop style, and the song's lyrics. You can watch the video here (18+, age verification required)
Turnaround of the band's vocalist, Alexandra, ready to be rigged in Harmony.
Turnaround of the band's vocalist, Alexandra, ready to be rigged in Harmony.
Turnaround of the band's guitarist, Zach, ready to be rigged in Harmony.
Turnaround of the band's mascot, Baphomette, ready to be rigged in Harmony.
As the band's vocalist, Alex had to be rigged with a wide range of mouth shapes from each angle.
As the band's guitar player, Zach had to have an incredible range of hand shapes in his rig. These were also different for his left & right hand due to the ring placement in his design.
There were a great many background characters in this video and due to the amount of them, animation needed to be transferrable between rigs. Here's a range of demons designed to utilise the same rig components.
Preliminary concept sketch for Twin Temple's music video, even featuring their dog, Ziggy.
Sprinkles!
Sprinkles! (working title) is a personal design project I add to in my free time, inspired by female-oriented animated series of the 80's and 90's such as Care Bears and My Little Pony, combined with themes from magical girl anime.
Funfetti & Confetti, with their cat Stracciatella, and their magical forms - Stracciatella is secretly a magical tiger who gives both girls superpowers!
Various props for operating an ice cream truck.
Funfetti & Confetti's HQ is the ice cream truck they run.
Funfetti & Confetti's HQ is the ice cream truck they run.
The Death & Times of Daisy Pusher
The Death and Times of Daisy Pusher (working title) is a personal design project I add to in my free time, centering on a ghost who goes to school just like any other girl, and her friends at school and the cemetery.
A lineup of the main schoolchild protagonists, as well as three secondary school staff characters.
A second lineup featuring the ghostly version of the main protagonist, as well as some of her cemetery entourage.
A mixed pose+expression sheet of the main protagonists.
A mixed pose+expression sheet of the main protagonists.
A mixed pose+expression sheet of the main protagonists.
Sample environment design. Hallway in Westbrook High
The same background with characters from the lineup composited in for style exploration.
Sample environment design. Westbrook Cemetery Day
Mixed Personal Work
A fanmade lineup of the main characters in Mattel's Monster High.
Designed a character and gave her a new outfit daily based on a list of prompts.
Designed a character and gave her a new outfit daily based on a list of prompts.
Designed a character and gave her a new outfit daily based on a list of prompts.
Design challenge with friends, the prompt was to design a female pirate with a blunderbuss.
Bat design for fun.
Can you tell which baked goods came from whose kitchen?
Some props from the squirrel character's kitchen. They are more natural not only in what they're made of but also in colour.