Hello my blessed follower
It will delight you to know that I have just completed the artwork for a new animation, on a circus theme!! Look forward to lots of little titbits in the coming months because I am seriously enjoying this one!
The last major animation project I finished was based on the nursery rhyme Old McDonald had a farm, and whilst drawing and animating the farm, farmer and animals was agreeable there was only so much creative scope available. It’s tricky to get creative when the brief if to provide movies of dancing animals for the enjoyment of the under 4s. Not that I am saying I didn’t try my best, but the limitations of making the animals at least marginally cute and the options available for movement of a pretty basic four legged skeleton got the better of me in the end; it’s fair to say that I spent more than a few evenings tearing my hair out thinking of things to make them do…
Portfolio page for Old McDonald
In the end I think the creative quality of the animation suffered, simply because I ran out of ideas, I mean one four legged animal is much the same as another! The Old McDonald cartoons were produced for Oxbridge Baby and are currently uploaded to You Tube – please check them out and let me know your thoughts, I am particularly interested on hearing from anyone who shows them to pre-school kids; that’s the target audience after all! There is also some other great stuff there which is aimed at pre-school kids, all very innocent and lovely and well worth a look.
So from the cute asinine limitations of the farm I move with a great tortoise-like leap to the circus! The circus comes in many guises; grim and Victorian, full of freaks, cheats and cruelty;alternatively it can be chok full of expert acrobats clad from head to toe in lycra dancing up giant ribbons, chucking each other and other various objects around as if everything was entirely weightless and bones were made to be bent. Or if you’re me (and you are again making things for the under 4s) it can be harmless, bright, joyful, dancy, smiley and massively gay (in the traditional sense). Even with the ever-present constrictions of the audience,the imaginative opportunities available on the circus theme have already far outnumbered anything a farm can chuck at your eyes and brain; I will do my bloody best to make the most of them…the only limitation here is me.
Let the fun begin!!
Lion Tamer and Lion (obviously)
louisedrawscartoons 