An internship at Walt Disney Feature Animation, France sparked a love of depicting the natural world through the art of drawn FX.

Animation stills - Boots Gillette commercial. Nexus Production, 2004.

I’ve animated organic hand-drawn effects in feature films, television, commercials, and short films.

Feature Film credits include The Tigger Movie for Disney at Tandem Films and “The Thunderbirds Movie title sequence, directed by Smith & Foulkes at Nexus Productions. Effects for TV and short films include designing and animating key effects for Cartoon Network pilot, 100 Head Edddy at Hot Head Films, and classic 4mations short films, How to Cope with Death and The Astronomer’s Sun.

More recently, I animated effects in my directorial documentary debut, No One is an Island and a featurette of A Christmas Carol for Lawrence Batley Theatre.

Transitioning from paper, I created a series of Official ToonBoom Harmony tutorials on hand-drawn effects, from animation to compositing.

Effects Animation (in order of appearance):

Christmas Carol (2001) animated theatre special, Toonboom Harmony
No One is an Island (2024) short film, ToomBoom Harmony
The Astronomers Sun, (2010) Duchy Parade Films for Channel 4 Television - Charcoal wind FX and light sparks
Boots advert, 2000s Nexus Productions, Hand drawn
The Tigger Movie (2000), Tandem Films Entertainment for Walt Disney Animation, FX Animator
A Christmas Carol 2000s Illuminated Films, Hand-drawn water
Wheat Thins commercial 2000s, Nexus Productions
Personal project, water, ToonBoom Harmony
How to Cope with Death (2000s) Tandem Films, Hand drawn fire FX.
'100 Head Eddy' (2009) Hot Head Productions for Cartoon Network Pilot: FX Animator
'Thunderbirds' Feature film title sequence, Nexus Productions (2004), directed by Smith and Foulkes.

The effects in The Astronomers Sun used a combination of optical, miniature, drawn and digital techniques to support the handcrafted aesthetic.

For the transformation sequence, I animated hand-drawn sparks and vaporous smoke. This line test shows my animated smoke effects in charcoal (inverted to white and composited over b+w reference prints of the stop-motion animation).