I’m truly grateful to you taking the time to browse through my work. How did it all begin? Well I remember as a child being excited by cartoons and comics. I watched animation religiously always being fascinated at the notion that they were drawings moving before my very eyes and I collected numerous amounts of comics particularly Marvel and DC. In terms of cartoons I was very struck by the old school hand drawn animation by the likes of Warner Bros, Disney, Hanna Barbera to name but a few. I remember making flipbook animation as well as drawing from comic books and then I kinda knew what I wanted to do after I left school. I had big dreams of becoming an animator and producing my own animated films, which I managed to do with the aid of my Super 8 cine camera.

1987/88:

After leaving college having studied for a year Graphic Design. I got my first job ever in the animation business as a Trainee Animator working for Brian Stevens Animated Films, which was situated off Oxford St. Feeling really elated at the idea that I would finally get my break, being the youngest and the last one in. I had to make the tea and fetch and carry stuff to and from the studio. There were periods of time when there was nothing to do, during which time I would either read a book about animation or doodle. I do remember one of the first projects that I was involved with which was a sex education video aimed at teenagers called ‘No Worries’, where I would paint mattes that would be used as part of creating the visual effects on the production, as well as painting sperm yes you read correctly sperm. In addition to this I would render typography for other projects, mix up colours and paint acetates or what was known in the industry as ‘cells’, which were transparent sheets of plastic on which drawings would be traced and painted on to. Another project I recall working on was for a company named ‘Kvernaland’ which was a film that demonstrated how a plough that they had built operated

1988/89

After leaving Brian Stevens Animated Films. I came across a studio named Richard Taylor Cartoon Films based in Muswell Hill north London and they were producing an animated production on behalf of the BBC known as ‘English by Television’ also known as ‘Muzzy Comes Back’ a sequel to a previous production that they made called ‘Muzzy in Gondoland’. The aim of this production was to teach children about reading the English language and how to tell the time, the central character was Muzzy, who was a big green friendly furry alien who had a strange appetite for clocks. My role in this production was mainly to operate the line testing camera, which was used to film the drawings at the pencil stage to check the animation before it went onto being traced and painted on to cells. In addition to that collecting and delivering, making the tea, painting and tracing on to cells, worked on some of the visual effects shots, and I finally got my first crack at drawing the inbetweens for some of the animation. How cool is that? I thought.

1990/91

After leaving Richard Taylor Cartoon Films. I received a phone call from Hollywood Film Productions to work on a feature length animated film called ‘Freddie as FR07’, which was loosely based on James Bond, where the hero being Freddie is a secret agent frog who is brought in to solve the mystery of various monuments disappearing from around the world. Working on this production was by default as I really wanted to work on ‘Fievel Goes West’ which was produced by Steven Spielberg being made in London at the time, but sadly they wouldn’t have me boo hoo, ahh well back to Freddie. My role on Freddie was as assistant animator and clean-up artist, where I would draw the in between drawings and neaten the animator’s rough drawings. Despite the characters being voiced by a distinguished cast of fine actors such as: Brian Blessed, Jonathan Pryce, Jenny Agutter and of course Ben Kingsley who was the voice of Freddie, it didn’t do as well as hoped at the box office.

1992 onwards

I have worked on a number of other projects since leaving Hollywood Road Film Productions which includes still cartoons for some of the shows for an online alternative news and current affairs programme for an organisation called RADTV UK, archives available on You Tube. My work nowadays is centred around mainly looking for opportunities in which I can widen the appeal of cartooning into cartoon drawing workshops for individuals or organisations, businesses, corporations, caricaturing at events. I can and have designed my own characters, produced my own animated films on Super 8 and I have created my own artwork available for sale. In addition to that I am open to collaborations with other artists, writers and create images for branding purposes ,presentations and open to commissions to create artwork as personal gifts.