CGI Character Design
Waybuloo
We were doodling Waybuloo in our sketchbooks in 2006. In 2009 we drank champagne at 11am while watching the first ever airing on CBeebies. In between those two dates was a massive amount of sketching, writing, CGI development and animation with input from our (mostly Zodiak) friends Nigel Pickard, Angus Fletcher and Vanessa Hill. We created our first ever full pitch bible and an ambitious mixed-media animation shot in Kew Gardens and starring Dan and Lucy's son, first ever Cheebie, Flynn Chesher Good! The film started by shooting backplates at the Japanese garden at Kew - including tickling Flynn's feet off camera, getting him to watch his favourite Star Wars toy atop a big stick and other weird stuff - to which Kev then added the wonderfully animated Piplings hopping, hugging and floating around the skies of West London. Some truly beautiful, emotive music by James Burrell completed the film which made Michael Carrington, the CBeebies controller very emotional... after which he bought 150 x 20 minute episodes!!
7 Wunder
In 2010 we collaborated on Seven Wonders – an Austrian 13 x 26 minute series that takes 5-9 year olds on journeys to see the world's 'little' wonders... We designed Crazy Lola, a fantastic, pedal-powered flying machine, her co-pilot Nelson, a funny puppet-monster and helped Nelson and presenter, Thomas Brezina to go on voyages through a toaster, a microwave, a human digestive system and many more. This ambitious series required puppet design, set design, and vehicle design and animation.
Dinosaur Days
Dinosaur Days is a socially responsible and funny concept devised in collaboration with our friends at Digital Outlook to help bring young people and old people closer together. We developed Rex and Bronte, two talkative, grumpy, old dinosaurs that owe as much to worn out sofas, Bagpuss and Zippy as they do to the late Triassic. We were lucky enough to get Likely Lad, James Bolam and his wife Susan Jameson to provide some fresh and funny, semi-improvised voice tracks that we absolutely loved animating to.
Quiz Castle
Quiz Castle brought us back into collaboration with Austrian Kids TV to create a spooky castle inhabited by a goofy double act in the form of Pizza, a cute and cheeky ghost and Rattlehead, a dumb and loveable haunted suit of armour. These two characters, developed and animated by us in CG, formed the heart of a spooky quiz show for 5-9s. We created a smart, 20 minute 'bento-box' of animation that has spawned over 100 episodes of Quiz Castle.
Squidge and the Hardnuts
Squidge and the Hardnuts is one of our favourite animated concepts to never see the light of day. We started with a concept that, heavily influenced by the Space Hopper and The Rubik's Cube, told of the adventures of a round kid in a square world. All about being and feeling different, Squidge was quickly picked up by the legendary Cosgrove Hall for development. We created, in collaboration with Cosgrove, a cute and wobbly animation test combining stopmotion with CGI that was pitched at Cartoon Forum then rapidly vanished as Cosgrove became a piece of UK animation history.
Twirligiggles
The Twirligiggles is a big idea developed in collaboration with Zodiak. Conceived as a fantastic CGI island where puppets, suited actors and real kids could hang out together doing everything they could want - from sport to story-time and from art to cooking. We put together a really fun animation test which nearly melted our modest render farm but when set to Rapper's Delight by The Sugarhill Gang, was totally awesome...
Vectone Mobile
We have been working with Vectone Mobile for some years. They needed an animated character to help them advertise their great value mobile sim campaign, so we created Tony, a cute, cool little chap depicted in Vectone's signature purple. Since then we have animated 12 TV commercials featuring Tony which have been translated into dozens of languages and shown around the globe. And if you missed the TV ads, you may have seen Tony on huge billboards, the sides of buses, on the tube, in your local shopping centre...this little bloke is everywhere!
