JamFactory

Last week I went to the Newport Velodrome with the...

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 22:26:00 +0100

Last week I went to the Newport Velodrome with the trackdropouts.com gang and shot a whole bunch of film (I didn’t dare ride, you have to be going atleast 18mph at all times to stay on the track itself!). Here’s a clip of raw, un-graded & un-edited footage that I pieced together quickly just to show the guys who rode, so they could see what it looked like. Much to my surprise, this footage got picked up by the guys at trackosaurus and Prollynotprobaly, which has resulted in over 4,000 plays which is nice!

My favourite shots are the final 2, which are dolly shots using the glidetrack system I’ve kindly been leant. It took a bit of experimentation with Jonny on setting it up, but really happy with the outcome! Boikzmoind is looking like it’s going to be released in 2011 now rather than this year but thats ok, I don’t want to rush it!

More DBD graphic news! This time my friend Jason, who got a...

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 22:38:05 +0100

More DBD graphic news! This time my friend Jason, who got a vinyl version of the graphic made-up to put on his rear disc wheel of his track bike which he rides at Newport velodrome! Cheers Jase!

Spare a thought for Ty from the finest fixed gear blog The Foot...

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 22:07:00 +0100

Spare a thought for Ty from the finest fixed gear blog The Foot Down who needs a replacement Death Before Derailleur t-shirt more than any of us! Why you ask? Well the above photo should explain it all, Ty had a run in with a car and came out with a broken collarbone and a ripped right thigh muscle! To top it off, he had to have all his clothing cut off him at the hospital. Ty did the right thing and photographed the knackered clothes! Check out The Foot Down for all your fixie news!

I’ve had a t-shirt re-print of my fixie-facist graphic...

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 21:53:02 +0100

I’ve had a t-shirt re-print of my fixie-facist graphic DEATH BEFORE DERAILLEUR! If you haven’t seen the graphic before, then it’s a bit of fun, a parody at how fascistic sub-cultures can be, especially the fixed gear scene! They’re up for grabs on my newly-updated online store, go check them out!

Matt Daniels aka stickypop had some tragic news recently, his...

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 21:26:51 +0100

Matt Daniels aka stickypop had some tragic news recently, his girlfriend Emma passed away suddenly after battling with an illness. In her memory Matt is putting on a art show, with the proceeds going to charity, and what you see above is my piece for it.

You see, the theme for the show was “Sailors & Cats”, as those 2 were some of Emma’s favourite things. He also supplied us a set of 5 colours to use, so all the pieces flow together.

After having a think, I wanted to try something different and thought about why not using a famous cat and doing my take on it. Then, i thought, why not go the whole hog and mix both a famous cat and sailor together! Well the idea was set and after lots of tracing, path tweaking and shape bending, it all came together, I call it “Hello Sailor”!

I’m really happy with this, it was a lot of fun putting it together and will hopefully make people smile at the show. If it does, well then my job is done :)

Jats Gill, the man behind the UK’s newest vinyl toy...

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 21:16:53 +0100

Jats Gill, the man behind the UK’s newest vinyl toy company ‘Bitbots’ asked me if I’d be part of the launch event of their first toy ‘Jinny’ by customizing a blank version for the show! It’s been a while since I’ve customized a toy but I gave it a shot! As I always tend to do with customs, I have a thing for pulling the head off and turning it upside down - I’m glad I did, as it made me think of a bird of prey, with it’s beak poking out.

I got out the milliput and sculpted a ‘lip’ around the bottom of the head, so it looked like a military helmet with the beak poking out as well as smoothing over the top where the hole was and voila, it was ready to sand down and paint.

Using a nice chrome for the helmet and a olive green for the body, all that was left was to try my hand at dry-brushing, giving the helmet and body a bit of a rusted feel! And voila, what you see above is the finished thing, I call him “General Ruffles III”. You can check out what the original looks like here.

Thanks to Jats at Bitbots and all the best with the launch, always good to support homegrown british tings!

The very kind folk over at Breaksof10.com asked if I would like...

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:41:18 +0100

The very kind folk over at Breaksof10.com asked if I would like to do a feature on their website, showcasing my favourite 10 or 12 photo’s I’ve shot over the years. I jumped at the chance and really enjoyed going back through my iPhoto library andpicking out my favourites. I got so into it that I couldn’t narrow it down to 12, and had to settle for my top 20!

I wrote a bit of text accompanying each shot too, as they all have their own story. So click here or the image above to check out the post, I hope you like it and thank you to Tom and all the breaksof10 guys!

I’m not good at anything technical. if it doesn’t...

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 22:36:00 +0100

I’m not good at anything technical. if it doesn’t involve pixels then I’m normally screwed. That extends to bikes too; I have a grasp of the very basics and can look after a bike, but thats about it.

Whenever people start talking about gear ratios, my eyes glaze over and my brain does a little burp. I think it’s because gear ratios are all based around numbers, and numbers scare me. I became a professional colour-inner so id never have to deal with the decimal bastards ever again (unless it’s to set them in Futura Condensed Extra Bold and make them massive, in some form of infographic, it’s acceptable then).

Like I say, I’ve never understood gear ratios but when seeing it written down one day, 42/16 or whatever, sparked a wee idea and I scribbled down 66/6 - That’s the ratio of the beast!!

So, that wee doodle gave me the idea and here we are, the finished graphic! It’s actually for a cycling cap exhibition happening at Howies in September, but this is the graphical concept, and I’ll put it into cap format soon, I just wanted to make the graphic itself firsy (spoke card-sized of course, it’s all I ever seem to design at the mo!)

Anyways, there you have it - 66/6 is the ratio of the beast! (And yeap, that chain ring graphic really does have 66 teeth!)

P.S If you’ve got an iPad, why don’t you sport the iPad wallpaper version!

Being the Apple fanboy that I am, I recently joined the iPad...

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:43:00 +0100

Being the Apple fanboy that I am, I recently joined the iPad gang and am absolutely loving it! Reading and digesting content has taken on a new level of excitement for me, it’s great! Anyways, I decided to start making some wallpapers for it, inspired by Delme, so here’s my first 2!

Grab the full size versions here on Flickr and please do spread the word, I’ll be adding more as soon as I can!

Spending my Saturday evening in a dark, damp tunnel, with a...

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 21:11:40 +0100

Spending my Saturday evening in a dark, damp tunnel, with a large group of bicycle riders, racing said bikes in a drag race style has got to be one of the best Saturday nights I’ve ever had! It was a great atmosphere, with everyone getting into the spirit of the races. I went along to film and even entered too (surprised myself by winning the 1st heat, but loosing miserably in the 2nd!)

You can check out my favourite photo’s from the night here and expect a short video edit soon too!

Delighted to show off a brand new avatar for Realmac Software,...

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:22:52 +0100

Delighted to show off a brand new avatar for Realmac Software, this time for Chris Downer, the latest Realmac recruit! He’s a UI designer and spends his time crafting pixels, so it made sense to build him out of pixels!

Gavin Strange | Jam and creation.

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:14:41 +0100

Gavin Strange | Jam and creation.:

Mint Magazine conducted a wee interview with me recently, just asking what I was upto and what the future holds - have a peep! Thanks to Edd and the guys at Mint.

Here’s something I’ve been very excited to share...

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:05:00 +0100

Here’s something I’ve been very excited to share with you; At Aardman I had the honour of designing the microsite for Ubisoft’s forthcoming Raving Rabbids game ‘Travel in Time’! Being a big game geek, I’m so excited to show this off as it was such great fun designing the site and its time-period ‘changes’. It’s definitely the most graphically intense teaser site I’ve ever designed, I love it!

You have to visit the site and watch the video play and unfold for the full experience…

Another post, another photo of an Aardmanite! This time...

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:53:17 +0100

Another post, another photo of an Aardmanite! This time it’s the turn of Dan Efergan and his beautiful bride Claire Efergan, who got married last week in a stunning old converted barn just outside of Bristol. When they took to the floor for their last dance, I got lucky with the light and managed to snap this shot, my favourite from the night. You can check out the rest of my favourites here, I hope you like :)

Aardman gave me a very exciting opportunity, to shoot a profile...

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:37:07 +0100

Aardman gave me a very exciting opportunity, to shoot a profile shot of Karen Heldoorn, our head of Digital and my boss, for a upcoming feature in NMA magazine! NMA normally use their own professional photographers, but the lovely folk of Aardman managed to swindle it so I could shoot them. It was real fun, as Karen is a very eager and fun person, she didn’t feel silly having her photo taken. This was the first time I’ve had a photograph in print, professionally, so really excited about that!

Big thanks to NMA & Aardman for the opportunity.

This is the Tate Movie Project, the single biggest project...

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:15:52 +0100

This is the Tate Movie Project, the single biggest project Aardman Digital has produced to date and I’m very proud to say that I’ve been involved in its creation! The site is an interactive film studio, to encourage kids to create pictures, drawings and words for an animated film that will be screened at cinemas - a film for kids, by kids! I had the pleasure of helping to come up with the overall website style, then art directing the wonderful Sarah Matthews & David Gillet work their magic on it!

If you’ve got kids then be sure to get them involved, their work could be in the film! Check it out at www.tatemovie.co.uk

Sorry its been a while since I last posted here, things have...

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:03:03 +0100

Sorry its been a while since I last posted here, things have been a bit hectic (which I’ll explain more in it’s own blog post). I’ve got a real thirst for learning new things, and I want to expand my horizons even more. I bought my brother a Lino cutting kit for his birthday a few months ago and after seeing what he’d done I took a shine to it, so I got myself some kit too! This is obviously very basic, my first attempt but it’s really satisfying (if not quite painful after stabbing yourself in the hand for the umpteenth time!). Im hoping to play a lot more with lino in the coming months!

The Droplet microsite finally had an update this weekend!...

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 08:42:09 +0100

The Droplet microsite finally had an update this weekend! I’ve added a list of known stockists from around the world as well as embedding Makinov’s launch video too. I’ve also added the Droplets for sale on my own online store too (each one comes with the box signed & stickers!). If you’d like to stock Series 2 then just drop me a line!

Last weekend I was elected as ‘Official...

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 16:32:36 +0100

Last weekend I was elected as ‘Official Photographer’ at my cousin Jamie’s wedding, purely because I had the biggest camera! The wave of panic soon washed away as I set everything to manuel and tried my hardest to capture the day as best I could, from a candid point of view.

Luckily the gods were smiling down on me, as everything went swell and I was real happy with the pictures I took. This one here is one of my favourites, their family dog Dexter decided to jump in the pool and cool off!

You can see my favourites on Flickr here or have a look at all of them online here! Congratulations to Jamie & Steph on their wonderful day!

Very proud to say that the custom Droplets that were created by...

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:27:37 +0100

Very proud to say that the custom Droplets that were created by a huge group of talented cats for the launch of Series 2, are now on display in the atrium of the beautiful Aardman Animations HQ here in Bristol! We get a lot of visitors to the building as well as the huge amount of talented folk in the building so it’s great to show them off to so many pairs of eyes, so a big thank you to the talented customizers, your work is being appreciated by everyone!