New Animation production...

This is a visual I produced for Kronfli-Duliba Productions to illustrate the concept for a new set of TV commercials for Park, a major Christmas Hamper and savings scheme located in the UK.

I've provided the character animation for all of Park's commercials since they introduced the Pink Fairy 5 years ago. In fact I helped design the character too.

We have just started to produce the animation for 3 new commercials, due to run from Autumn this year and into next year.

I can't say anything about the content of the ads except that they'll be as entertaining and charming as ever. Julian Kronfli at Kronfli-Duliba Productions has devised a sharp and witty concept and his live action direction is second to none. The key point to directing the live action for these commercials is that his main star, the Pink Fairy, will be added later by me, so all the scenes have to be shot with the animated character just being imagined in Julian's head. He has to direct the actors to react to something that isn't there.

I've received the live action footage and Julian and I have discussed what the fairy has to do. We usually come up with some additional ideas regarding the character's performance, and throughout the animation process I will add to that to round out the emotional performance and the character's interreaction with the actors.

I'm not going to show any material during the production, but once the commercials are on air I'll let you into one or two secrets about the process of animating a 2D character in a live action world; or at least how I do it.

View one of last year's commercials at Park's website HERE.

Printing the Woodblocks...

A long day printing a run of 40 prints, using 3 Cherry blocks, 2 of which were carved on both sides to give a total of 5 passes; light blue, yellow, red, blue and black, printed in that order.

I printed the light blue first because in a test I'd done the secondary colours created by the over-printing looked better with the red and yellow passes printed on top of the light blue rather than the other way around. I was after a blueish yellow and a blueish red rather than a yellowish and reddish blue.

I worked from light to dark with the colours following the same order when producing a watercolour painting, finishing with the black.

I know the black is usually printed first to assess any changes in registration, but I didn't want the colours to over-print onto the black and weaken it and mean I'd have to print the black again, so I risked it. I suppose I could have printed the linework in a very pale blue first, and then printed it finally in black, but I didn't have the time.

Printing is scary! There are so many considerations; keeping the paper consistantly moist, (probably too strong a word. I would use "water cooled") constantly assessing the amount of pigment and paste to use and regulating it throughout the print run, clearing bits of the block away when it started to catch the paper (my fault - I should have done many more proof prints before my print run to correct things like that. Again, so short on time.), and many other things.

Anyway 13 hours later with only 30 mins for lunch I had my 40 prints. I layered them between dry cartridge paper with my heaviest books on them and closed the door on them for the night wondering if any of them were good enough.

A couple of days and a couple of changes of cartridge paper later the prints were dry and ready to sort out. I've managed to select the best 31, and I hope they meet with the approval of the Exchange participants. Some have come out well, others have blotches and marks that I wish they didn't have. On the whole though, I'm pleased with how my second woodblock print has turned out.

Had I known how difficult it would be to produce such an odd shaped print in a minimum of 3 colours I may well have not signed up, but I did, and I'm glad I did.

I've learnt so much producing these prints; much more than is possible to read in books. The subtle amounts of pigment and paste, so much a case of less is more, and how easy it is to use too much. The use of the baren and how much pressure to use, again slight variations make a world of difference to the finished result. I was only just starting to get the hang of it by the end of my 5th block. A book can't show you how much pressure to use. One man's heavy pressure is another man's light touch; you can only discover that by doing it.

So I hope all the participants of Baren Exchange #33 will be kind to me. You can only improve by doing something and the pressure of a deadline is perfect motivation.

Right, what should I do next? I'm going to concentrate on linework next. I want to improve my carving skills for detailed lines...

Print Progress

Work and life have been rather busy recently, so on the day that I post my prints to the USA I can quickly grab a few minutes to update my progress on the print exchange. The images in this post cover completion of the carving of the key block in Cherry and a print taken from it, which was then used to reproduce the areas for the individual colour blocks; the carving of the Cherry colour blocks and a test printing of the colours.

Key Block and print, including Kento marks.

After printing the linework I removed the border and other lines that weren't needed for the finished black print. They were printed to be used on the colour blocks. The Kento marks were also printed in order to transfer the same registration from the key block to the colour blocks. I used this print to draw up all the colour blocks.

2 Carved colour blocks

Close up of red block

Once the carving was completed I did a test print of each block in the colours I'd selected. I'm using Winsor and Newton Artist's Watercolours for this print.

Colour tests

The 3 colours I'm using are: Alizarin Crimson, Yellow Ochre and Phthalo Blue. I'm using the blue in 2 strengths, one as a kind of "grey block" to create simple shading and secondary colours and a stronger mix for the sky, domes and doors.