felixcolgrave

2 Tonne Duck

Hello all and welcome to February! Hope the Februfairy left some treats under your pillow!

I'm still chugging away full-time on my new film about rats, thanks to all your generous support! <3

I also did this paper animation, only I over-committed with this one, so the little signature in the corner should actually say "Feb" for some of these frames. But that would be confusing, so I pretended it was still January. It's done now, and my month can begin!

As always, the indi...

Hellscape Presentation

Hello here's a(n animated) background for the film! The one about rats, it's still that one.

A "volcanic hellscape" wouldn't usually be on my list of favourite landscapes to draw, but I put a lot into this one and by gum, I think this is one of the best backgrounds I've ever made??? I like it anyway.

As you'll see in my little video presentation, the ground is coloured in with a 3D model, but a very flat one, like a relief sculpture. But then I went and did redrawn lava animation,...

Homemade Lava Recipe

Hello I made some animated lava for a background! The rest of the background doesn't exist yet, just the lava. Here's a little process video. There were originally going to be TWO rivers of lava, but on second thoughts, I don't want to do this twice.

Fall of the Dinosaurs*

Actually just one dinosaur. There it goes! BANG! Happy New Paleogene

I didn't animate any more frames, because now the camera has to pan several metres to wherever the head lands

old for a flower, young for a tree

Happy New Year everyone!!!! Thank you so much for your support this past year.

2023 was the year that I finished DONKS, and have now started work on a new film!

In the interim in the middle I learnt a bunch more 2024-01-04 02:22:40 +0000 UTC View Post

The Wrong Rats

These are the wrong rats! These rats are all wrong! They cannot possibly be my rats, my rats were not like this before. What has happened to my rats??

Oh right, the cat

Sorry I thought I posted this cat here! I posted a WIP of the shot at some point a while ago, but here's the actual finished cat!

This cat, like this rat, is a shot that WILL be in the film, but the film idea was very fresh when I did it, so I was just jumping the gun and making stuff that I knew would ...

Hatch and Dash

Hello lovelies!!! Hope you're having a nice December, and thanks so so much for your support in 2023.

To coin friends, as I mentioned last month, I'm in the early stages of a new film- so that's what your support will be going to this coming year! It's about rats, and while I haven't written out a plot, it's something where I've got a lot of interconnected ideas, which is generally how I start most of my bigger film projects- so it's probably going to be one of those! As with previous f...

Rat in the walls

Hello! More rat stuff. I mentioned before that I was thinking of doing the backgrounds as 3D illustrations- so I've tried it out, and it looks like this!

This film is going to be about the animals that live around people. Birds in roofs, flies in bins, and most centrally, rats in walls. Wall spaces are very narrow, almost flat. You might even say, two dimensional! So there's not much benefit to having 3D backgrounds in terms of depth or camera angles.

But BECAUSE I'm really limite...

Building a reptile really really quickly

Here's some 3D modelling for you, sped up really fast!!!! I would like to tell you exactly how fast it has been sped up, but I'm really bad at maths and I got confused working it out. I sped it up a bit, then edited out all the pauses, then sped it up some more. But basically, it took an evening and then most of the next day. A lot of that was me googling questions about Blender though because I still have no idea what I'm doing!

This is the second time I've2023-11-09 02:39:53 +0000 UTC View Post

The Last Mammal

Hello you!!! Fancy seeing you here in this November. Thanks so so much for your support this month, and also just generally!

For those who don't know, I think I'm officially doing a film again! Work has begun on some little animated scenes, that belong in an idea that I'm yet to entirely jigsaw together. But they'll go in there somewhere!

Here is a three dimensional image- except it's only two dimensional from where you're sitting. This was one of this month's pen pal drawings, wh...

Threatening Cat

Hello! More progress on that RAT thing! I posted that little loop 2 weeks ago and I was excited to have some follow up rat material for you last week, so I did some style tests where I tried to convert every frame into a 3D object, just to determine if it was possible for a whole project. I tried a few different techniques and all of them hit roadblocks or just looked kinda bad- and before I arrived...

rat rat rat rat rat rat

So I have these rats I draw a lot. You might have seen them! One month I did a comic about them on Patreon, and I'm pretty sure there's one in my current YouTube header image.

Since starting this Patreon, doing Pen Pal drawings every month has largely replaced keeping a sketchbook (I've done over 1000 Pen Pal drawings by this point)- and in these drawings there's a few characters that keep reappearing- including these rats!

Note that it's ratS plural- while these characters have b...

Burning the Midnight Slime

Hello everyone and a big THANK YOU for your support and generosity this month!!!

Here is a snail working late into the night! Perhaps on a thrilling crime novel, or maybe writing policy recommendations for the local council. She's possibly also a teacher, marking assignments and writing lesson plans! I'd ask her but she seems kind of busy right now.

The original line art for this snail is one of the ink drawings I did for Pen Pals this month. After I publish this post I'm going to...

Behind the scenes, on the surprise ant music video

Hello! You may have seen a new music video out from "my studio" the other day! If not, here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEfdkM89cQI

So where did this come from? Why haven't I posted about it here before, and also what studio?

I answer ALL of this in the video, but basically- I did not make this! My partner Zoë did (who is the OTHER half of the studio). Your support on here pays me to...

DONKS OST: Assembly Required

More extended Donks Music! This one is a bit chaotic, since it's the bit in the film where a creature builds a Donk body piece by piece, and each new addition changes the way it walks, and in turn changes the rhythm of the music.

The idea behind the music in the scene was that the final two-footed guy would be walking in 4/4 at 120bpm, aka the most NORMAL rhythm in the world, both for music and for walking. Whereas each iteration before would have some kinda wonky walk built out of more...

Donks OST: Flotsam

More Donks music! This is a longer version of the underwatery bit, when all the Donks are sinking into the cave.

This is the 2nd song in the tracklist, and the 4th one that I've extended so far- enough tracks that I can start to kind of imagine an album existing!

I know I've done this before, but it's a confusing way to make music, adding new ideas to these bits everyone has already heard...

Caterpencillar

Hello hello lovely friends! A big THANK YOU for your support this month, and I hope you're all having an enjoyable start to your Septembers, wherever you are!

I said in my last one-of-these posts, that I was on track to finish a new short video in August. I'm pleased to report that I DID, and that's currently available on Patreon to exclusive coin friends and upwards.
But for everyone else, I will be dropping it publicly on YouTube this month, so you will be able to see it- and those...

The Lost Suburbs

Here's my thing!!! My video! It's whatever this is!

This came from a desire to do something redrawn, just to sit down and do drawings in sequence and see what happens. DONKS was all hard objects being nudged around, and I just wanted to make something where I sat down and did a drawing and then the next one, and that was the character- and I let the piece kinda form around that.

Despite being motivated by drawing, the environments are obviously very 3D- I think this squishy morphi...

Flying to a computer near you

I said this little video would be done this month, and I know time is getting away from me, but I'm on track to make that be true! I haven't had anything interesting to post because I've  just had one longish, completely redrawn shot that has taken up most of the month. Meanwhile, the shot AFTER this took less than a day! It just goes to show that drawing pictures is for fools and we should all just press buttons.

ANYWAY there's a tiny bit of sound design and minor editing left, b...

Toad Chimney

Hello everyone!!! Hope you're all having an agreeable August wherever you are, and a massive thank you for your support this month, and other months, and generally!

Here is a toad chimney. Keep your eyes peeled for these next time you're at your local swamp.

The line art for this drawing is one of this month's Pen Pal sketches. If you're a Pen Pal then maybe this drawing, (but most likely a different one), is on it's way to you.

I'm also happy to report that I have a shor...

Space from the outside

Hi, I know I normally kick off the month with a look at one of the Pen Pal drawings, and I'll do that soon, but I have something ready to show you so shhhh let's pretend it's still July for a second!

Here's a silly little video of how I made a very simple background. I tried to achieve the same kind of effect in 2D multiple times, until I realized an easy way to do it in 3D just by offsetting a texture. Definitely nothing fancy, but it was an exciting moment realizing I finally know en...

Into Space

I'm doing the audio for this shot right now, and I'm trying to find the right balance between sounding like a rubbery video game spring board, and the actual groaning metal of a road sign that's not meant to bend that way

It's a sign

⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️

⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️

Play Mat to Nowhere

A background from the thing I'm making! In video format, for fun.

The roads obviously aren't meant to make sense, but full disclosure I can't actually drive, so they're also probably wrong in a bunch of ways I'm not even aware of. Please do not attempt to drive on this image!

Bad connection

Sorry you glitched out for a second there, I think it's fine now though

Bubble Ant

Hello everyone!!! Thanks so much for your support this July, and all your other support all those other times. Work continues on the Donks soundtrack, AND for those who don't know I'm currently working on a short video- hopefully because it's short, it means you'll get to see it soon (soon compared to a long video, at very least!)

This month's Pen Pal drawings will be sent off in the next day or so- here's one of them that I coloured in! This drawing was in part based on prompts by my 4...

bonk bonk taptaptaptap AAAA

Bouncing, pitter-pattering and screaming are just SOME of the things this man is up to today!

Colouring in a drawing with 3D models

Here's a thing I said I was going to do, which is a timelapse of me "colouring in" a traditional drawing, using 3D models!

The drawing I selected was a random Pen Pal drawing, and wasn't made specifically for this purpose- but a lot of my drawing motifs ARE undeniably inspired by 3D imagery (this one has some obvious "Croc" energy for instance)- and so it's satisfying to see that I can give those drawings a truly 3D finish, without compromising on the shapes that I've drawn.

You m...

That guy is back again

Hello, I know I said just yesterday that I'm going to edit together an octopus-related timelapse (and I will), BUT I also need to show you how this dancing man is progressing: that is to say, slowly!

I don't know if I've ever animated fully-redrawn dancing like this before, but every body part has its own business going on and it feels like solving a rubix cube.

This first 2 seconds of ...