New project image

Here is an image from my newest upcoming project

Coming soon...ish

Good boy film

Hello everyone, it has been a long time in the making but finally the 'Good Boy' film is finished.
I will be adding some making of and behind the scenes photos and videos later on but for now please enjoy the finished product.
It has been a fun and moving project to have worked on and I am really pleased with how it has come out.
Thank you to everyone who has helped me along the way (even just to give me photos of their dogs for the end credits) and to Kelly Angel for giving me the opportunity to bring her original comic to the screen.

Please enjoy.

Good boy film continued

Hello all.
It has been a little while since my last update, but the animation for the good boy film (based on the comic strip by Kelly Angel) is finally finished.

It's been a really fun project to work on, It was such a wonderful story, very funny and quite emotional at times and It was a piece I am glad to have animated.
The work isn't over yet though, I still have editing and sound and other various finishing touches to work on for the next month or so until it is complete.
So check back soon and hopefully the film will be here waiting for you to feast your eyes upon.

Until then, here are some stills from the film and some making of shots.
Enjoy.

Good boy film

Hello

It has been a little while since my last update so I thought I'd get right to it and let you know what I've been up to.

My latest animated project at the moment is a short film based on the amazing and very moving comic strip 'Good boy' created by Kelly Angel.
If you have not read this then I urge you to do so now by following this link:
Good boy comic

After reading this comic I knew almost at once that this was a film I wanted to make.
With Kelly's approval I began working on the film and have been doing so now for the past couple of months.

Original model prototype 

In summery the film is about the life of a very happy dog.
In the film I am trying to follow the comic as closely as possible, using the frames of the comic as reference for each scene.

Comic panel and film still

The film is now over half way finished and if all goes well will hopefully be complete by mid August.
Keep your eye out for it and I will update again soon.
Until then, here are some making of pictures for you all to feast your eyes on. Enjoy.

Grave advice

Hey everyone, sorry there haven't been any posts in a while, I'm currently working on about five different projects that I will hopefully share soon. But I thought I'd update with stuff I can actually show you for now...
Last month I worked on a short for the 11 second club, I hadn't done one in a while and thought it was time to give it a go. I just wanted a small project that I could animate on right away and the 11 second club was perfect for this. I ranked 101 out of 290 (1 being best rated 290 the lowest)  so nearer the top than the bottom.
There were a lot of great entries last month and the winner was well deserved, I'll just have to work harder to get higher up the scoreboard next time.
I will hopefully have some of my bigger projects to show In the near future but for now you can check out the video for the 11 second club here:



Grave_advice from Kyle Bennett on Vimeo.

Initial sculpt

Replacement mouths

Dog armature testing

A simple walk test to test out my newly created dog armature, i hope you enjoy!!!



Dog armature walk test from Kyle Bennett on Vimeo.

Eggsacty! This is no yolk!

Here is a quick test I did today of an egg for a future project, enjoy!

Comic and general update

Hey everyone, it's been a couple of months since my last update, I'm still working on Georges reviews and have been planning more on my next short film.
Although I have nothing to show animation wise at the moment, I have been working on a comic.
It's just something I've been doing in my spare time for fun and got a bit carried away with.
It's pretty stupid and certainly doesn't take itself seriously, but I find it funny.
I decided that now I have quite a few pages that I'd start uploading it online to see if anyone else finds it funny....

Anyway, if you want to check it out, I've graced the website 'Smack Jeeves' with my creation and you can find it via the link below:
How I Saved The Entire Universe!

Enjoy!

11 second club mother and result

Hey everyone, i thought i'd posted pictures of the mother but looks like i've been slacking, the 11 second club was finished in any case and I came 45th which i'm really pleased with considering the competition. Here's the finished result. (Making of picture's underneath)



Potty training (11 second club submission)

I made the entire face for the mother out of plasticine

I started the mouths by making the shapes in black

I then added white plasticine teeth and red plasticine lips

Here is the potty before i painted it

These are the only pictures i have, i will try and take more of the making process in the future.
Stay tuned for my next animation update!

Big Baby Madness: Making the baby!

Hello everyone, if you've been following my posts, you'll know that i've been working on a short project for the monthly competition the 11 second club.
I'm doing the animation in two sections, the mother and the baby. Since the baby's part is shorter I thought I'd do him first to get him out the way. I've finally gotten around to puppet making and sorting out his animation.
I documented the process as I went to show my progress.
Here's how I've been getting on!

Starting to build the baby's head with mixed plasticine 

Here's his finished head, all that's missing are his eyebrows which will be added later

Some replacement mouths

Building up the baby's body

There was no need for legs as he would only be shown from waist upwards.

I then built some simple props for the animation:

Some building block toys 

A cot for the baby with bee design

Here's my final set up, a simple set with a simple puppet ready to animate

Here he is, mid shot, in his whole 3 second appearance 

Next up is the mother and her part of the set. Hopefully it won't take me too long, there's only a week and a half left of the 11 second clubs deadline.
I'll keep you all updated as to whether I succeed or not!

Thanks for checking out my blog!!!!

Big Baby Madness Animatic and test heads

Hello everyone, as promised here is an update on my 11 second club project.
Using the rough storyboard from the previous post, i have created a basic animatic to see what the clip will look like. Here it is:

I then got to work building some test heads of the mother and baby to see what they would look like in 3D.

Here are some pictures:

I've decided that, as the characters won't actually be in the same shots together I'm going to work on 2 different scales, meaning that the mother will probably be around the same size as the baby. But the sets I build will make it look as if she is much bigger. 

More updates soon!

Big Baby Madness

With the new Gammon film finally finished and out the way, (see here: Gammon)  I've decided to go back to basics.

I want to do a few short pieces, most recently I created a new Georges reviews. (See here: Georges reviews)

And for this month I've decided to do the 11 second club. This will keep me from spending the next couple of years on a single project.
I want to work on short pieces like this and will probably do some more Georges reviews over the coming months whilst I work out what my next big project will be.

I'm hoping to get the Gammon film into festivals for this and next year and if successful I may be working on the continuation of that.

But for now we have the 11 second club, a short monthly animation competition in which you animate to a piece of dialogue, see link if you are interested: 11secondclub.com

Now after all my babble, here's the interesting stuff, the pictures!

This is the mother character with a few mouth designs

This is the big baby character with a few mouth ideas

And here is my unintelligible storyboard
(If you can understand this then you are a very smart person)

       These are just my initial idea pages, there will be more up soon and it should make a bit more sense.

 I'll keep updating as the month and project go on, so keep checking back for more updates!

The Adventures of Gammon Pinkman

Here is a trailer for my new film 'The Adventures of Gammon Pinkman'



The Adventures of Gammon Pinkman trailer from Kyle Bennett on Vimeo.


If you are interested you can check out the Gammon blog here: http://gammonousman.blogspot.com/
It's full of production stills, some early test videos and a lot of making of pics.

Hard Times (not literally)

I thought i'd already posted this but clearly i didn't.
A while back, i was part of a two man team creating a short animation entitled 'Hard Times'
It was for a competition that unfortuantly we did not win, however it was a fun week long project that was very enjoyable.

Hard Times is a stop motion project, using a cut out animated puppet and a stop motion puppet in a basic stop motion set painted to look like a cartoon.

The very short animation is about a homeless man (cut out puppet) and his dog (stop motion armatured puppet)
The homeless man is trying to earn a bit of money through playing his music.

Here are some production pictures:

Homeless man design

And here is the final film:



Hard times from Kyle Bennett on Vimeo.