Ed Taylor - Artwork

(All artwork on this web-page was entirely created by Ed Taylor except where otherwise indicated)

TV Commercial, Durarion 30s (USA) - Nexus Productions, London

TV Commercial, Durarion 30s - Nexus Productions, London

SERIES DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT WORK

Ragdoll Productions, UK. CGI consulting, Episode Design & Development.

A broad selection of my work...scroll down for much more about each project...(there's a lot on this page!)

Short on time? Download a PDF file of a selection of my work (stills only of course!) for easy browsing here (20 MB)

Designing a Children's Series: The stories are set in a South American city - involving a gang of children hanging out at a juice bar on the beach called 'Flux Deluxe'TM. I worked on the project for close to a year as a consultant and designer (working with my colleague Damian Johnston). Our brief was to bring an already successful range of 2D characters (developed for print) to life through animation. The project involved a careful transition from extremely 2D ‘graphic’ characters into 3D whilst retaining their charm and making sure their extreme proportions didn't make them too inpractical for animation. We then went on to design and realise key locations for the series and concluded by producing a 2 minute trailer. My role was primarily in design – taking charge of the transformation of the characters into 3D and the development of the sets and style of the show, that meant problem solving, drawing, modeling, shading & lighting (Damian handled the rigging, cloth & character animation). Here are just a few images recording our journey through the project...(any image with a floating hand has a larger version - just click)

The original characters are exceptionally graphic and "flat", I strove to capture the charm of the designs whilst giving them true 3D form. This meant reducing some of the most exaggerated elements - eg hair!

With a third dimension - it would be all to easy for these 'top heavy' characters to become rediculously unwieldy!

Working initially with just one of the characters (Augusto here) I began to explore the aesthetic style. The image to the right illustrates different approaches to shading allowing us to discuss the pro's and con's of each; carefully weighing up the creative, technical and budget implications.

Check out the Character in 3D! The last shows him with "real" hair - pretty cool - Hair shaders are a little tricky to set up with a time & cost implication - But look great. Like many CG features, hair is getting easier to deal with and faster to render.

Bringing these "head heavy" characters into a 3D environment required careful consideration. A 3D environment is inherently more 'real' than 2D and while a certain amount of 'cheating' is still possible - characters are a little more tied by real world considerations/limitations. Eg. Could this character actually reach his own mouth to eat something, how would he climb the stairs, how would we have to adjust the set to accomodate the figures and would this work aesthetically?

We also looked at the relative proportion of head to body - how this influenced the perceived age of the characters and just how small we could make the body before animating it became a little impractical (you need a lot of footsteps to cross a room when your legs are that short!)

Each character went through a careful development phase - looking at different approaches to hair in particular. Here they are in their finished state.

Each Episode revolves around the lives of the children, who hang out at a juice bar on the beach. This was the key location for the series and we needed to create it for the pilot. Our clients had a good idea of how they wanted the beach and juice bar arranged and had already explored a set design for the juice bar itself (created as a model in true 3D) – the design having a “twisted perspective” feel.

So Damian and I started from there (image to the left)– initially looking at the pro’s and con’s of the original set. The wonkiness - though appealing, would prove a practical nightmare for animators - so it was decided to square things up a little. We then went on to establish the layout of the bar and the beach before venturing into colour & texture...

Working without colour initially (this can be a distraction to layout) I figured out the basic proportions and relationships between the key elements of the location. Once approved I moved on to more aesthetic concerns - colour & texture. Finding an attractive solution for the ebbing and flowing ocean was an enjoyable challenge, involving animated textures on both the sand and water, and subtle control of transparency, colour, reflection and refraction (making the most of 3D's strength - without causing horrific render times!)

The scripts involved an old VW van used as an office. The animation shows experimentation with the proportions of the Van with respect to the character. (scrub the quicktime movie)

and...er....Penguins too!

All IMAGES Copyright Ed Taylor 2003-2007

Click on a thumbnail to see the bigger picture...

Over the past few years I've toyed with a bear character using him for my annual Christmas card. I've recently given the character a re-vamp along with some of my favourite "bear" images from the past. Here are the New versions - beside each is a "closer look" at the detail (the originals are at a high resolution for print) and the original version of the Image.

Technical stuff: Quite a testing character to put together - Hair/Fur can be tricky at the best of times - to get aesthetically desirable results careful control was required over fur density, length, and clumping across the different parts of the body. This means careful placement of guide hairs and the use of Black&White masks to control the density and clumping. White fur is particularly challenging to light - it can easily "bleach out", likewise to look convincing a sense of the GI and translucency between the densely packed hairs is required.

(All artwork on this web-page was entirely created by Ed Taylor except where otherwise indicated)

Interesting Polar Bear facts:

Polar Bears are the Largest land-based Predators on Earth. A polar bear's fur is hollow to trap warmth. All Polar Bears are Left-handed. Beneath the Fur a Polar bear's skin is entirely black. Polar Bears face probable extinction in just decades due to Global Warming.

A character I've been working on as a Personal Project, an opportunity to tackle some of the most challenging elements of Computer Graphics - working with Hair and Skin. Creatively I'm trying to Develop a character with a balance between stylised appeal whilst utilizing the level of sophistication that 3D can offer. Rendered with Brazil.www.splutterfish.com Work in Progress...

Original Design & Development / Writer / Story board / Pilot Director

interstellar Sofa transportation

interstellar"FiSHING'" Reel

Tiny Planets is an award winning 3D animated Television series for young Children - It's become a huge favourite and is currently airing in 85 countries around the globe! Here's some of my original artwork. Find out more about my work and experiences creating Tiny Planets here...

Here's a Sample of my Story boards for the Pilot Episode...

Back in September 1998...a new London based animation company called Pepper's Ghost, commissioned me to design & develop their very first animated production - A children’s series, provisionally called... “Tiny Planets”.

...they had a one page concept and a script outline for a story involving mixing colours.

The show’s heroes? A pair of characters called ‘Bing’ and ‘Bong’ who would travel to different planets and have exciting, imaginative and educational adventures!

I created the structure of the show – conceived and designed the home planet, the interstellar Catapult, Reel & Sofa. Designed and modeled Bing & Bong as well as the planet of colours featured in the Pilot episode. I co-wrote, story boarded and directed the Pilot episode which was created by a nine man team. On the strength of the pilot Peppers Ghost were able to seal a production deal and go on to create the full 65 episode series. Check out the BAFTA winning Tiny Planets web site, created by awesome designer & illustrator, Steve Woods...

"Tiny Planet of Colours" 7:00 min.


	..Just seen the original Pilot? ...here's the 'series' opening sequence for comparison. No sound I'm afraid!

"Evolution of Bong"...(click to see bigger)

This is a Short Film (1:24 min.) commissioned by Cambridge based software developer Kelseus to promote a cloth simulation plugin for 3DSMAX...it was originally shown at Siggraph 2001.

The simple brief was to create a short that clearly demonstrated the capabilities of the cloth plug-in whilst also being engaging and entertaining! We quickly decided that a story set on a theatre stage would lend us plenty of opportunity to use the cloth simulator, (well over twenty different instances) as well as create a simple and hopefully engaging plot. You might notice thateven the water and torches are made of 'cloth'.

Rough Animatic: We shoot the Story board to give us a feel for the pacing and flow of the story. Check it o below...

Besides the excellent sound & music (which was created by Alan Coates - of "The Hollies" fame ) The film was entirely created by Ed Taylor & Damian Johnston.



						Cloth Tests: We did a large number of tests to get the weight and 'feel' of the cloth right for different applications - you can see a few of them here..

Promotional Designs for Skydiving Centre

My twin brother and I turned 30 in July 2004 - to celebrate making it that far (still in one piece though a little worse for wear) we "threw caution to the wind" and along with a bunch of friends headed for the sun to learn to Skydive - fortunately we were in safe hands - with the guys who do the airborne stunts for the 007 movies! The first thumbnail - below - shows a design I did for T Shirts for all of our crew. The other designs were commissioned by the Skydive Centre - here they are! Want to Skydive in Europe? Check out www.skydivespain.com

"Watch your Money Grow" Dur. 00:30min. Designed, directed & realised by Ed Taylor. Produced by Passion Pictures.

A 30 second Commercial for Birmingham Midshires produced through Passion Pictures. A Stickman walks into a building which "grows" around him...

I also did the development for a second ad. (though was unavailable for actual production). There's also some print work below - involving various "stick" characters in differing moods and guises!

Watch the ad...

Stills

Print Work



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Character Model	Mechanical Muscle	Mechanical Heart	Healthy Nerves	Healthy Muscles	Healthy Joints	Nerves Design	Muscle Design