Bill animates Trans-Atlantic Tumnus

Bill Greenhead's latest whiteboard animation is a music video for Free Swim.
The group asked Bill to make a video for their latest rock track "Trans-Atlantic Tumnus", and of course Bill jumped at the opportunity. He says " The track gave me a chance to try out lots of new techniques in whiteboard art. I wanted to be able to place static objects and for them to spring into life. Lots of 3d animation with UFOs and robots. It's a fun track to animate." Watch the animation.

Insanity

Bill Greenhead animates 'Insanity' by The Glass Child.
Enjoying the genre of 'gothic horror'', Bill combines dark humour, gloomy thoughts and spiders to create this piece. He says "I chose (this song) because it would give me fresh challenges in After Effects...and because it's an amazing track". Watch it now.

An Emmy for Aardvark

Nathan Aardvark played Art Director and Lead Illustrator on this Emmy Award winning title sequence for Starz's 'Da Vinci's Demons.'

Last night's Emmys saw Nathan and the team crowned with the 'Outstanding Main Title Design' award for the show. Talking of the commission, a very proud Nathan says "The job was to create short animated illustrations to go on top of footage from the show. I was supplied with various clips and painstakingly sketched over the top of each frame....frame by frame! In the end I had hundreds of drawings which were then composited later in post production. I tried to keep it close to the classic style of Da Vinci as much as possible."

Another cool feature of the title is the crab cannon; when the music is played backwards the melody is the same. Watch the titles.

Greenhead's E Stings

Bill Greenhead enters the 2013 E Stings with Flamin' Nora.
Bill had immense fun with this animation, created for the popular competition run by E4. Apart from a few rules including no violence, the piece being exactly 10 seconds long and to incorporate the E4 logo, the competition is open to all those who love to see their work on the TV. The chosen favourites will be aired on E4 with the winner receiving a nice £5000. Good luck Bill! Watch Bill's entry.

New Talent Alert...

We are excited to welcome Ben Robins and his fabulous CGI skills to the talent at Illustration Ltd. Take a look at his portfolio.

Trunki's Paddlepaks

With Duncan Beedie's fine character animation talents, Trunki's ad for the new range of summer swimming/beach bags is now aired. Duncan was brought to the project as a house client for Aardman Animations and used Adobe Flash to create the character animation for the lobster, jellyfish, octopi and clown fish. The new 'Paddlepaks', shaped like underwater creatures are a fun new range from the popular brand Trunki, the ad can be seen here.

Meet Me in Paris

 

Take a peek at Daria Jabenko's utterly romantic animation 'Meet Me in Paris'. Completed as a personal project Daria uses her skills to evoke the feel typical of time spent in the city; "Picture yourself in a luxurious place in Paris, it's snowing outside... and your heart is filled with love and romance". WATCH IT NOW.

Miracle Gro Parade Float

Andy Council has recently completed a set of illustrations working with Dentsu for Miracle Gro plant food.  Andy produced several illustrations which run in sequence to form a stop motion style animation, the fantastical flower parade float is shown being built by lots of little people working together.  You can see it on the Miracle Gro Facebook Fan Page!

Greenhead and the Gods

Bill Greenhead uses his whiteboard technique to create this animation on a more classical theme! Well... almost! See the animation here.

Festive Pointillism

Bill Greenhead has been having some festive fun with his whiteboard. Father Christmas comes alive with Bill's series of dots! See the video

Shepherd East Conference Video

Matthew Robson has completed a fully animated conference video for Shepherd East.

Produced for Motus.tv Matthew animated seven separate characters for a 2 minute short "(it was) a testament to how far technology has moved forward over recent years." say Matthew.

Each of the characters (apart from Bruce Forsyth) are members of the Shepherd team, with the use of many 'in jokes' and personal catch phrases, the video "got a rapturous applause when shown at the conference." Matthew says of the production "Technically, it was using some new custom modified animation software that allowed me to dial in a much more nuanced performance for each character. Add to that the fact that style wise I’m moving away from black keylines in favour of coloured ones, and towards simpler, light and colour focused backgrounds with no keyline at all, all go to make it one of the jobs I’ve had the most fun with this year." See the animation.

FRAME X FRAME: Showcasing Alan Baker

 

 

All using the Fiona Goble figures...

The Night Before
Working with the 'Twas The Knits Before Christmas' knitted figures, Alan Baker creates this animation as a promo for the book, published by Ivy press. Watch it now...

 

 

The Royal Wedding
An amusing animation for 'Knit Your Own Royal Wedding'. Watch it now...

 

 

 Noah's Knits
Alan uses his magic once again for the German version of 'Noah's Ark'. Watch it now...

Green Wednesdays

Nick Murray Willis  produces another witty animation, this time for Nice and Serious . Used as a promo for Green Wednesdays  - an idea 'to connect influential people with the best environmental and ethical films in order to bring about change', the animation carries the message with Nick's wonderful line drawings and characters. See it here.

Dan's Dog - A True Story

Click to watch the animation

A story designed to make you smile; Dan's Dog is a funny animation from Bill Greenhead. The amazing thing, is that it's entirely true! Bill says "... There's lots of tricks having animation interacting with live action in this piece. Stop motion photography and a very funny true story tying it all together. It's shot looking like the live action work I do for Bite on a whiteboard. But unlike that work, which I draw on an actual whiteboard, I create this in Photoshop and ship into After Effects."

Portal Financial

Bill Greenhead produces this animation using After Effects and Photoshop with the production company Rogue Gene. The Scottish squirrel explains the benefits of using Portal Financial, the UK's leading pensions group. Watch it here.

ESPN Paper doll

This paper doll with choice of outfits was created by Heather Landis for ESPN. She says " They needed a paper doll with a variety of dresses including a sports outfit - a 'casual' cubs uniform. They used it as an animation in their documentary about team spirit." See the documentary here. (5 mins 30 secs in.)

Showcasing NICK MURRAY WILLIS

Nick Murray Willis presents 3 animations...

Sorry

A moving music video for US musician Fred Melendres's touching song "How Do You Say You're Sorry?".

Watch it now...

Workshop

One of Nick's monthly Paxton animations, this time dealing with the attraction of power tools!

Watch it now...

 

Drought

A funny example of how far one man goes to limit his water usage.

Watch it now...

 

The Olympknits

Alan Baker's animation for The Olympknits is a great success. You're sure to have a laugh when you watch this Knitted Olympknits promo, done for the book which is by Laura Long and published by David and Charles. Alan was given a free hand to do something interesting, and amusing! Watch the animation.

Paxton: Keys versus Keycard

Nick Murray Willis's work for Paxton continues with this animation explaining the benefits of a keycard in the workplace. Nick's clever use of line and clear thinking has produced this piece of moving art which gets the message across with a sense of fun. Nick says “I had to approach this animation differently to the previous Paxton animation, I thought showing the advantages of the keycard at the same time as disadvantages of an ordinary key would be really effective. The timing had to be spot on so not to confuse the viewer with the double scenario.” Nick has been commissioned to produce one animation per month for Paxton, to be used on their website. Watch the animation now.

Bite

just sleeves

Bill Greenhead has successfully completed his eighth ad for Bite in Romania. No stranger to the overhead shooting, Bill drew directly onto a whiteboard with no guides to help! And with 3 days to work out what they were going to do for the final shoot, Bill helped with the storyboard and design of the ad. Commissioned by award winning McCann Erickson Romania and alongside StudioSet TV, the job has proved to be a fun one, in the spirit of Bill's entertaining drawings. Bill says "We used cardboard cut-outs for the first time to reveal other drawings, an idea I brought over from another shoot I did recently in London, to great effect. I just wish I hadn't thought of wearing the Christmas jumper. It got quite hot under the lights. Luckily I only had to wear the sleeves."  Watch it now.