Mr Bean Bafta Nomination!

Exciting times! Mr Bean the Animated series has scored a nomination in the years Children's BAFTA's! Check out all the runners and riders here

A stack of Bean

This morning from 8.25am, CITV are showing episodes 1-13 of the new series of Mr Bean back to back. Enjoy!

Mr Bean goes live

All this week on British Children's broadcaster CITV it's Mr Bean week. The first batch of new episodes have been going out at 9.30am and 4.15pm. If you've missed any, you can of course catch up on ITV player
Altogether there will be 52 new episodes made by a crew of over 40 writers, designers, animators and editors, For the past year i've been working as an Animation team leader and some of my episodes are going out in this first batch, with plenty more to come!

Kushaboom launches on Nick Jr

Hot on the heels of Ludus, here's another game I worked on. Welcome to Kushaboom, a new dance game from Nick Junior. You can play along and learn some cool dance steps. I was responsible for all  the in-game animation on this one.
http://www.nickjr.co.uk/play/kushaboom/kushaboom-dance-with-helena

Blake on a Goldstar

goldstar from oliver brown on Vimeo.
Here's a  little animation of Blake clambering aboard his Goldie. Animated in Maya with an After Effects pass to add the exhaust smoke

Goldstar movie

goldstar 001 from oliver brown on Vimeo.
 Here's a render of the Goldstar for your enjoyment!

Bear Walk

Bear Walk from oliver brown on Vimeo.
 The finsihed article. Built from scratch then rigged, skinned and animated!

Bear rigged

Have had great fun rigging the bear up for animation. Found some great tutorials for adding controls to the rig, including custom attributes for feet and fingers.

BSA test renders

Here are some test renders of the finished model. I'm really happy with the result but I can see a few small details I'll need to add before I can call it done!

2CV with Norman

2cv with norman from oliver brown on Vimeo.

Here's an animation I made using the 2CV model I built. All animated and rendered in Maya. I used Mental ray and indirect lighting to give the car model a real polish. I learnt a lot about parenting constraints along the way.

Showreel

Olly Brown animation showreel from oliver brown on Vimeo.

Heres a collection of clips from recent animation tests i've done to teach myself how to animate in Maya, featuring Blake and Norman rigs.

Norman wall climb

Norman wall climb from oliver brown on Vimeo.

Heres a Maya animation i've been polishing for a while. It uses the Norman rig.
I was concentrating on the feeling of weight as Norman climbs and drops.

Castle

castle from oliver brown on Vimeo.
Fun with a simple castle built in Maya and a flyaround camera.

Children's Media Conference

I'm back from the Children's Media Conference in Sheffield. I had an amazing time catching up with friends old and new, listening to awe-inspiring speakers and taking part in a huge variety of sessions and workshops. The breadth of the conference is huge, with speakers ranging from Ian Livingstone, the godfather of interactive games to the Cartoon Network's 'Gumball' team of Mic Graves and Ben Bocquelet. Kanoti's own John Davison spoke at the 'Never ending stories' session, produced by Clare Fegan. I'll certainly be back for more next year!
I've posted on Kanoti's blog about Ian Livingstone's Fighting Fantasy session.

The Kensington System

The Kensington system is a new interactive comic i've been working on at Kanoti.
It tells the story of Queen Victoria's early life at Kensington Palace under the rule of her mother and Sir John Conroy. All artwork was hand drawn in Flash the coloured in Photoshop. Animations were done in After Effects. The comic is best viewed on iPad to experience the full range of interactivity.

Octonauts at Kidscreen

The Octonauts website has won 'Best Companion Website' at this years Kidscreen awards in New York. Congratulations to everyone at Plug-in media.

Children's Baftas 2011

Congratulations to all the winners at this years Children's Baftas, especially Harley Bird and all the crew at the Elf factory for the double win Best Performer and Best Pre-school animation for Peppa Pig! Full list of winners here.

2CV on the move!

Norman weight lift

Norman Rig