Eb and Flo: A Long Way to Go!

It gives me very great joy to share this video – the first animation I have everĀ  produced independently for a client!

Flo DropletEb Droplet

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ebenezer Droplet and his sister, Florence, travel from the clouds above the Snowy Mountains, along the Murrumbidgee River and all the way to the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area to help the community, animals and the environment.

I was contacted by Ian from Murrumbidgee Irrigation in regional New South Wales last year about creating a cartoon for their educational programs, and working on it while living in California these past many months has provided a lovely reminder of Australia: through both the local flora and fauna in the story, and the accents of Eb and Flo, whose voices – and the whole soundtrack – were provided by fantastic Adelaide musicians, The Giggly Kids!

Beginning with the client’s concept, this project was a long haul of character design; script writing; environmental research for scenery reference; commissioning the soundtrack; hand-drawing, water-coloring and scanning all the character and scenic art, and of course animation and editing. And all the while liasing online from across the Pacific! My client was very enthusiastic, flexible and committed, and for a commissioned piece I was able to enjoy a high degree of influence and creative freedom. It has been a massive learning curve, but peppered with much delight along the way.

Bonnie Adventuress!

 

Another card, this time for my lovely, one-of-a-kind buddy Bonnie on the occasion of her intrepid solo bike tour around New Zealand following Adelaide Roller Derby’s visit with (and victorious bout against) Auckland’s Pirate City Rollers last year. She’s an adventuress and no doubt about it!

Pedal parade

I never really need an excuse to draw bikes and their riders… but the recent Tour Down Under here in Adelaide provided one anyway! In this peloton are a jumble of assorted loose & jolly cyclist scribbles from around Tour time and a couple from my Spring Ride brainstorming too. Hop on your own trusty treadly today!

Spring Ride this Sunday!

The birds are above and the bees are a-buzzin’ … Spring is here! The Bicycle Institute of South Australia gave me free reign on this poster for their second annual Spring Ride, and it ended up a cavalcade of colour and new life. It was more of an excursion into watercolour than I’ve braved before, and I’m very happy with the freshness of this big birdy and how she holds her own without the black lines I usually use.

The Spring Ride itself looks set to be an excellent event, I can’t wait! A couple of the organisers are the masterminds of past Ready Set Ride outings and I reckon anything they’re associated with is guaranteed to be heaps of fun. If you live in Adelaide, come along! This Sunday, from 10:30 at Victoria Park. There’s more information here and here

 

Shiloh the Pirate!

Yaaargh! Avast! Trim the mainsails! Shiver me blasted blue-barnacle-encrusted, jolly-rum-do timberoonies!

Who says no good comes of reading glossy, gossipy magazines? If I hadn’t been perusing the celebrity rumour-rags one fine day recently, I wouldn’t have been inspired by a certain pint-sized tomboy Jolie-Pitt and her pirate-themed birthday party hijinks! The fuss these magazines make of a little girl choosing natty vests instead of frilly dresses is just absurd, but I say she always looks like she’s having far more fun than little what’s-her-name Holmes-Cruise in the pointy high-heels. With a yo-ho-ho and a bottle of OJ!

Maddy’s Dilemma

Kids these days! Using the internet like they were born to it … which, I guess, some of them were. This was a commission to illustrate a scenario for an internet-decision-making resource for primary school children. The teacher would show the image and read out the scenario to their class: in this case, Maddy has already tried all the games on a ‘safe’ kids’ website, and is trying to decide whether to search for a new site without asking her Mum. After hearing the scenario the kids would discuss what they might do in Maddy’s shoes, and why. This illustration was hand-drawn and coloured with a tablet using Photoshop.

 

Character development

Doodles of a character I’m working on. She loves her bike, and is having trouble getting used to boarding school!

 

Undone!

“The bats beat their wings in a terrible rhythm. They stirred up a storm of squealing fury. My feet left the ground. I was flying.”

- Paul Jennings, ‘BATTY’, from ‘Undone!’ Penguin Books 1993

“Anthony nodded his branches at me. ‘Mnn, nmng, nn,’ he said.

I didn’t know what it meant. Probably something like, ‘You embarrassed me. Now it’s your turn.’ “

- Paul Jennings, ‘NOSEWEED’, from ‘Undone!‘ Penguin Books 1993

Re-reading Paul Jennings’ books is a treat. There are always a few stories that I’d completely forgotten, whose endings fill me with fresh surprise and delight. And while they really don’t need pictures – everything’s there in the stories – some moments just cry out to be drawn, even if it’s just for the fun of it. Here are a couple of those moments – the ones I couldn’t resist scribbling down the instant I finished reading. BATTY and NOSEWEED. How did these characters end up like this? Go and read Undone! – you won’t regret it!

The Book Beast

‘The Book Beast’ is a playful little story I wrote last year, which is still in development. These initial illustrations were exhibited at The Reading Room – a wonderful space supported by the Renew Adelaide project.

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