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[Black Mirror] Metalhead – DNegTV & VES awards!

Hello! It’s been a while.

Just a quick update – I was very fortunate to be leading the amazing animation crew at DNegTV on the Black Mirror episode ‘Metalhead’ last year.

The whole department did an incredible job bringing the killer dog-robot to life, I’d go as far to say that it’s been the most incredible project to be a part of in my whole animation career so far. To add to the epic-ness of the whole experience, back in January, word came through that the animation on the robot was nominated for a VES award for ‘Outstanding Animated Character in an Episode or Real-Time Project’ – we couldn’t be happier – what an incredible honour!

Stafford Lawrence, Steve Godfrey, me & Andrew Robertson

Myself, Stafford Lawrence, Steve Godfrey & Andrew Robertson were all invited to beautiful sunny L.A. to attend the awards – so we did just that :D Unfortunately, we didn’t win on the big day – but we all had an incredible time all the same.

One of my BM shots

As you can see, I’ve been neglecting this blog for quite a while – the site got hacked a while back, but a big thanks for my brother Celfyn (diolch!) for bringing everything back – I plan on updating this a whole lot more, with mostly animation tips/notes, and some more photography.

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“Do you floss?”

Here’s a short personal project I’ve been working on. It’s a short dialogue piece I animated using Long Winter Studios’ excellent ‘Tom‘ character.

I had a great time animating this one, and had some great help from my old colleagues (thanks Mariano!) as I progressed through it.

Huge thanks goes to Oasim Karmieh for whacking together a nice shader and light setup for me to render with Viewport 2.0.

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Hotel Transylvania – Zombie Rig

HotelTransylvania_Zombie_IestynRoberts

One of my favourite, recent animated films has to be ‘Hotel Transylvania’, and in a fantastic move by Sony Pictures Animation, they’ve gone and released an actual rig from the upcoming sequel to Hotel Transylvania, for free, for Maya!

During my coffee break this morning, I went ahead and opened up the rig, and just had to pose him. He’s incredibly easy to play with, and such a great character to knock out some poses with. I’ll see if I’ll get a spare few hours to actually animate the great character.

Thanks Sony!

To download the zombie – here’s the link: Hotel Transylvania – Zombie Rig

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Froot Fly – ‘Merry Christmas’

After three weeks of intense late nights, we managed to roll out the first episode of Froot Fly – ‘Merry Christmas’, just in time for Christmas. Here she is:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/82649280[/vimeo]

I animated the last three shots, from around the 0:40 second mark to the end, and also arranged the Layout for the whole short. It was Directed by Matt Bugeja, and information on the rest of the crew can be found over at Froot Fly’s Crew Page. Fantastic team, one I can’t wait to work with again.

Huge thanks goes to Oasim Karmieh, as the poor guy was left texturing, lighting and rendering right up to Christmas Eve on the short, but he did a fantastic job as I love how everything came togethe. Such a great project to work on, and stay tuned for more episodes in the very near future – I’m going to be Directing the second short, which sould be out in the coming weeks.

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SplineBomb!

Done by Adrian Williams for the first anniversary of Splinebomb
Done by Adrian Williams for the first anniversary of Splinebomb

I’d just like to take a minute to talk about SplineBomb. Splinebomb started exactly a year ago, by ninja animator, and top guy Matt Bugeja – it’s a website that he updates everyday on new and upcoming animation – which is pretty amazing!

The ‘About’ section states that “It ‘s (a site that) provides all the latest information related to the animation industry including movie trailers, tutorials and loads more…”

It was only a few months back, that I had the pleasure of working and sitting next to Matt over in Brown Bag Films, where I learned that it was him that was behind this amazing site. I quickly began sharing some links with him, which, in turn, made Matt make me an Admin for the site, which was a huge privilege  – being able to share animation news on one of the best, and most active industry sites out there.

Since then, the site has grown immensely. We’re super active, posting everything we find relevant, and we meet up online to discuss how we can expand, and enhance SplineBomb.

My current contribution is that every Monday, I write an article on the history of animation, titled ‘Chronicles of Animation‘ – which is something I’m personally really passionate about, as I love going back in time to learn more about things. It’s getting a really positive response over on Facebook and Twitter, which I’m really happy about.

SplineBomb continues to grow, as Matt has recruited some more people to help post, and to write product reviews on the site. If you’d like to get involved, please ‘like’ us on the Facebook  and follow on Twitter: @SplineBomb – we’d love to hear from you folks!

Stay tuned, as we’re just about to announce some epic news really soon.

Huge thanks to Matt for letting me help out with SplineBomb, I’m having a great time with it, and ‘here’s to another great year!’

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Available for work

Hello, my contract over at Brown Bag Films is coming to an end – after a fantastic 9 months over in Dublin working on the beautiful looking Peter Rabbit, I’m back looking for work as an animator.

Peter Rabbit
Peter Rabbit

Please feel free to get in touch, as I’d love to hear from you.

A link to my current reel (I’ll be updating it really soon) can be seen below – together with my CV and reel breakdown.

Iestyn Roberts – Animation Demoreel

Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear from you folks soon!

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Basketball, ‘AL1VE Magnetics’ commercial

Just before I moved over to Dublin to join Brown Bag, I animated the following basketball sequence for a AL1VE Magnetics commercial:

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/62734751[/vimeo]

I animated both characters and props, together with some of the layout. The set, characters, lighting, shading and the HUD was done by Oasim Karmieh for pixelophy.com, and I can’t believe how beautiful everything came together, he’s done a fantastic job.

The full commercial can be seen here:

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/58883454[/vimeo]

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