The Wedding Online Premiere

My graduate film The Wedding has just premiered online through Short of the Week!

They have a really flattering write up/review on it too.

So here the sucker finally is (I finished it like a year ago!)

The Wedding from Simon Cottee on Vimeo.

And also a super all over the place, long and totally out of focus Duck video update that I probably should have never uploaded!


Oh and a new Beast Chorus entry!

Ducks 2013

HEYDUCKS2013 OH MY!
A bit of a dump of junk.
HEY A VIDEO UPDATE FOR THE DUCK


Annnnd I was the illustrator for the 2nd issue of the very cool Brisbane writers journal Stilts. Here are some of the illustrations that I drew like... almost a year ago!

There are more in the issue too!
Annnnd here are my christmas cards for 2012. The last one is for my big sister of course.

ANNNNNND here is an amazing picture I found that I forgot I drew and was wrongfully put into a folder called mess. It should be in a folder called Masterpiece.

I sure like pink hey.

Hey some duck background samples why not

More... pink!?

Oh and we have a bunch of new Beast Chorus entries that you may have missed, they gettin better and better! Here is a little sample of one illustration, but it's the written pieces that my man Samuel Maguire writes that makes it!

Wait a second... that looks very... OH MY GOOOOOOOOOD

HEY SUCKAZ

Hi. Hi guys. I've been a little nonbloggy I'm sorry.
I'm soon to put together a new video update for the Duck and talking about my amazing experiences at the Munich Film Festivals of Schools, which was literally the best time of my life. What a year.

I'm currently crunching like mad on my backgrounds for the Duck. ALMOST done. We are also fair behind schedule and currently looking into getting some Screen Australia funding to finish us off, which would also afford some awesome stuff for the film.

Here are some little samples.

This one is a MONSTER of a file

Also just some sketches of whatever:

So some more news'a'coming.

Beast Chorus, Ducks and Stuff

HI my blog.

So here is a recap because lots of cool stuff is going on. My pen and paper bro Sam "Skydekkerix" Maguire  and I have started a new collab site called Beast Chorus. It's sorta like a high concept webcomic/fantasy journal. It's a bestiary of fantastical creatures for a pen and paper RPG setting, Sam and I come up with the monster, Sam writes them up wonderfully and then I illustrate them. It's so much fun! So go check it out for some excitin writin and artin. HERE!

I've also got some illustrations from whatever:
This guy, an illustration of a character from a story for my buddies at Stilts.

And here is a silly picture from a drawjam.

AND here are two characters you may recognise for a freelance project that fell through:

 

Here is a bad drawing of Greedo!

AND here is a rough walk cycle test for the Duck!

AND here are two images nearing a final look and style! WOAOAOA!

OH and there is a chance I may be going to Munich in November with the Wedding. I'm also in a bunch more festivals and award things yaaaay.

Ducks, Vikings and Monsters

Hey, just an update of some art and stuff.
OH and the Wedding was recently screened at Brisbane RAW's event:

It was very cool, and the US section of the site interviewed me here.

I've also just found out that the Wedding is nominated for an ATOM Award and official selection at the Brisbane International Film Festival. Super excited.

The Duck is almost at v3 animatic, close to starting animation! Nerve wracking, haha.

HEY here is some recent very rough art and junk. Big strong men only?

And an exciting new project I plan to start with my man Skydekkerix / Sam.

Oh and I've been reading way too much American Elf.

Kids in Danger!

Here are some for fun character sketches for a Kids in Danger 80's style adventure.
I'm planning on running this as a pen and paper game for some buddies, I'll assign them these characters for their SP-SP-SPOOOKY adventure!

Click for full res!

All Goonies, Sandlot and ET up in here!

Updatan

So I'ma workin guys. YES THAT IS RIGHT.
I've even got a first draft animatic and story board together!
I'm now in the process of creating placeholder backgrounds, that I will also turn into colour boards.
This means I can get into animating as I know the staging of each shot.
Here are some example:

You can see I am using the anamorphic widescreen on this one.
I added the characters there to demonstrate the shot.
This is 2.35:1 aspect ratio or 1920x817 effectively. Look at all that SPACE!

A multiplane placeholder background, the characters will be added in the animatic.

And revising the rough storyboard panels. A big part for me is just diving in and getting something down,
even if it's horrible. Then I go back and redo it all.

The Duck big updates

Been a little slack with my blog sorry, I've started using twitter again and running the kickstarter site.
HERE ARE SOME NEW THINGS.

Video of funding ending:


Latest video update:


And some new concept art:

New Protagonist designs

New Other Ducks. you can see my embarrassing old designs too.

I started to do some tests with water colours while down the coast. This Duck looks... deformed.

Testing again, rushed this one so it came out a bit of a mess.

So I have the cash now, I have a producer, I have nothing to work on but the Duck and am ready to become a recluse and get to work. Super pumped. I just have to resist video games and tv Shows a little more than I am.

And my head with my Duck's colour palette for fun.

The Duck video updates 2, 3 and 4

HEYA duckers.

So I've let my blog be a little quiet because I've been putting most of my energy into my kickstarter campaign for my 2nd film.

So here are the last two video updates. From Nice to Cannes to Paris to Giverny to Palestine to Israel to Paris Airport!





 5 days to go and $1,400 to raise. OH HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECK this is tense.
SO PLEASE DONATE:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/simoncottee/the-duck-a-short-animated-film

The Duck Kickstarter Video Update 1

Here is a video update for my kickstarter campaign.



Oh and the Duck portrait of author Ben Loory

Huge Amazing Animation Dump

I can safely say I have seen enough amazing short animations in the last month that I question why I even bother sometimes. SO HERE ARE SOME OF THEM!



Swelter by Jacob Streilein
This really flawed me with it's palette, ambience and use of shadow. The character animation is fantastic too and I loved the ambiguity of the whole thing (personally I would have loved a darker ending. BUT hey, I'm the guy about to make a Duck love story film).



Chop Chop by Bird Box Studio
Bird Box are masters of timing and telling amazingly effective little stories with so little. The choreography of the fight is unreal too, note how three dimensional those simple characters are. Charming!



The Eagleman Stag by Mikey Please
This absolutely flawed me. I almost don't want to say anything about it because you should just experience it fresh. So I won't. But absolutely sublime.



Mafuta by Kyler Spears
Like Jacob Streilein this is another Calarts student. I really want to go to that school...
Check this character animation and volumes control. BOW BEFORE IT.



Beat by Or Bar-El
From looking at the time line I thought "Seven and a half minutes! I dunno about this." But in the first 30 seconds I was totally sold, and it only got better. Bar-El also says this is his first 3D attempt. Sonuvagun.



Legs by Alexander Pettersson
This is just so much fun, short and incredibly sweet. What energy!



Epilogue by Kris Anka
This one is a bit of a slow burn but has some amazing compositions and style. I think this could have been pushed over the edge to amazing with some better sound engineering and maybe a very subtle score. Love the wide screen.



Nocturne by La Poudriere (I think)
I loooove this. The style is so unique and the sound and score incredible. The kind of idea you wish you had.

-------------------------
Oh and don't forget to support my Kickstarter campaign! It's going greeeeeat so far!
13% funded!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/simoncottee/the-duck-a-short-animated-film

The Duck Kickstarter is ALIVE

Thunderducks are GO!

I have finally launched my Kickstarter campaign. So feel free to annoy all humans (or wealthy animals) about it!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1121025716/the-duck-a-short-animated-film

I've got a really good feeling about this, even if I am really nervous at the same time.
I'm headed off to the Cannes film festival on the 15th then off to the Tel-Aviv student festival.
So it's pretty much the most exciting time in my life ever right now.