GOODBYE OLD BLOG!!

Our blog has been moved and a new more indepth blog has been gone online. You can read all about our productions as well as view all of our work over at: www.freakishkid.com

See you all over there!

FK

WHAT HAPPENED TO MARCH?

Thats a good question! one that would normally require an answer - but for the life of me I cannot remember!

Been super busy in the studio, finishing projects and designing new ones. June is a big month for us. We finish a whole manner of things as well as pitch some new ideas to the big networks.

The above images are from a pitch for a music video, it's a cool and kooky concept that deserves to be made... So... Anyone want a music video?

GK

BEAT THE STAR

We recently put in a pitch for a title sequence for a Saturday night prime time game show on a major television network in the UK. It had all the right boxes ticked to make it a success. Average Joe contestants, ludicrous activities and, of course, an insane amount of cash up for grabs!

We wrote a brief and produced the concept images above - the idea being that a 'normal' guy off the street battles against a celebrity. Who ever wins swims in an obscene amount of cash. The animation was going to be a cut out style, high concept - slick looking graphics and a comedy pay off.

Unfortunately we didn't get the gig. The good thing is we get to show you the concept images of us making complete tits of ourselves!

And they call this work!

GK

FAILURE IS NOT BECOMING...

Failed...

Why do we make promises of regular blogging then completly fail to live up to them. I think the way forward is not to mention more posts and just try (secretly) to keep up to date.

Anyhoo, work is flying through the studio at the moment (hence the lack of posts...) We've had a lot of exciting projects over the past couple of months. We'll hopefully be able to share some of the work with you soon...

The images above are taken from a short we produced for a French comic book company, we've included the original comic artwork of the scene as well. It was a cool project as we already had characters, colour and storyboard designed, the challange was turning the comic strip into life, judge for yourself the results here.

GK.

THE GREAT 08!

It's been a long time since our last post...

We missed quite a few important dates, er Christmas... and er, New Year so...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Above is an image from one of our new productions, something we're making for NickToons in the UK. This year has started with a massive bang for us, we're expanding and also forging ahead in new directions. It's an exciting time for us - our new website will go live soon with our very own TV channel... KidTV.

We're going to try and make more regular updates this year, we'll keep you posted with the latest news from the inner sanctum!

GK

UNICUM IDENTS

A couple of years ago we directed a campaign for the Hungarian beverage Unicum and Unicum Next. It was a very successful campaign involving 3 men, enlisted in the army during the great war, doing whatever they could to get out of duty, drink, party and have fun.

Part of the campaign was to produce idents for Viasat 3 Hungary. They featured our 3 heroes being cheeky with the ladies and having some fun. Above are a few screen shots from the idents. Some were produced digitally and some traditionally.

The idents were produced for MyFilm KFT in Budapest and McCann Erickson Hungary.

GK

HAPPY HALLOWEEN...

Happy Halloween blog viewers...

GK

MTV - SONY VIDEO WALKMAN

A few months ago we completed a promo spot for MTV celebrating the release of the Sony Video Walkman, a video player so small you need a magnifying glass to see stuff! Personally we prefer a 120" Plazma screen HDTV with a cinema surround sound system. Somehow I don't see how you'd carry all that lot without falling over or getting robbed!

The spot shows an 'urban fellow' strutting through his streets listening to his music and watching his favourite videos, every time he changes a track a bubble pops out of the Walkman, inside that bubble are his memories, the places he was when he first heard the track.

We had fun working on the spot and it was a good chance to do something a little different visually. Above are the concept backgrounds that were produced in different mood colours. The client loved 'em so much they wanted to use them in the actual spot - good for us cause we didn't have to remake anything!

The spot will be available on GreyKid's new website which launches very soon.

GK

HOORAR FOR NICKTOONS!

It"s good to know theres a network you can take an idea to, no matter how small, pitch it and have it given a budget and a schedule.

NickToons UK have just comissioned one of our ideas, given it a workable budget and the creative space to see if we can make it 'grow'.

We can't really so too much about it at the moment (other than thanks a lot!) but rest assured, once things start rolling this will be the first place we speak about it.

GK

BACKGROUND ART 01

Just a quick one.

Thought we'd upload a piece of background art without the animation - sometimes that stuff just gets in the way!

Enjoy!

GK

TEA TIME ON NICKTOONS

Currently on air in the UK on NickToons are seven bumpers that we produced for the segment called 'Tea Time on NickToons"

The bumpers advertise various toys and game products from Rubik's Cube to a set of Horrid Practical Jokes (whoopee cushions ahoy!). The main character in the bumpers is a waiter who gets into various situations as he tries to take a customers order. Above are sketches from the design phase right up until the digital asset building. The bumpers were produced entirely within E-Frontiers Anime Studio Pro (Moho to us old school folks!).

We worked very closely with the guys over at Nickelodeon UK to get a style that resemble a hand drawn, scribble 70's look. It was a great project to be involved in - we had a riot animating the waiter being electrocuted!

So if you have Nickelodeon/NickToons tune in around teatime and check 'em out. We'll hopefully be able to upload them soon to show the whole world!

GK

TREES!

Some foliage designs from one of our projects - are you a tree hugger? whats your preference? Birch? Oak? Pine?

Love the smell of damp wood and the touch of bark beneath your fingers?

We love trees so much we chop 'em down, slice 'em up, pound 'em, pulp 'em and then draw funny pictures of trees on 'em... now that's tree sadomasochism! (technically we know these were drawn digitally but before computers we did it for real!)

GK

THE WONDEROUS MR. KNUNK

Just who is Knunk?

A question everyone has asked no doubt, is he some Scandinavian/wierdinadian pop group like ABBA or AHA?

Does he croon like a god and have chiseled, masculine looks?

Do women (up the north of England) throw themselves at him with great passion?

Can he leap tall buildings in a single bound? - NO, But he can bloody draw!!! (and so yes women do throw themselves at him around Christmas time when they need an 'artistic' favour!)

Above is just a sample of this mans large talent (arrgh!)

May he continue to bless GreyKid's portfolio with his greatness!!!

GK

BUNNY LOVE

Hi guys,

Before we start a job we usually produce a concept image to give the client a better understanding of how we'll approach the production. This can range from a simple sketch to a fully comped, illustrated image. We are also required, sometimes to produce a little animation test to show exactly what kind of motion we will use - thankfully, nowadays we get asked less and less to do this kind of thing - though occasionally, if it's needed we'll step up to the plate and try and hit a home run.

With Bunny Love the idea (style wise) came to us out of the blue (or pink) - at first though the idea for the video was a little different - originally we were going to have a group of friend bunnies getting ready to hit the forest club and boogie all night - the end of the video was going to be the beginning of the final piece we have now, all the rabbits dancing together. The main story in the first idea was a continuous travel shot of bunnies joining in the journey to the club - we were going to use a split screen method to show the bunnies getting ready for the big night and finally joining the big march.

Then we got the song!

Although it has a lovely summer feel it didn't really gel with this idea. That's when we followed the lyrics and came up with the story that is in the final video - the band loved it and its one of our personal favourites - hopefully we'll get to make the sequel soon...

Not much was needed for this job, the client had seen our previous work and was impressed enough to give us full control - a term we artists love! - we just provided an image so they could see the final style of the piece - the process of which is below...

First we sketch our idea, with Bunny Love it was there from the get go...

We like to produce as much artwork (for concepts) in Flash - this is the line work pass...

After the line work... the colour! The art direction on Bunny Love needed to be bright and bubbly - like the songs music - the nightclub and night time setting posed no problems in the final film.

The final concept image - we add lighting and shading onto the artwork. With a concept image you are looking to present a piece of artwork that will resemble the final film as much as possible.

More soon...

GK

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!!!

Well the studio is very busy at the moment - so much so that we immediately broke the promise of regular blog posts!

We have recently been commissioned by Nickelodeon to produce one of our ideas, it's great that we get the chance to put our own ideas out there, they run around the studio like mad midgets on speed for so long all you want to do is kick them out - then when someone offers to buy them you sell them quicker than Daley Thompson in a decathlon!

Is it also true that we compare our (I mean all artists) creative ideas to children? if so then I think we have broken the law several times in accepting money for them... err, I think that’s enough about that!

We'll upload more from the show as it is being produced - we'd like to share everything with you (as long as big daddy Nickelodeon says it's OK) as well as other works that we've done.

We have a new version of our website going live soon with the addition of KidTV - we'll keep you posted with that too.

In the mean time here are a few shots from the music video we produced for a Hungarian band, the English title of the song was called 'You Are Still In Me' we named the music video 'Bunny Love'. It tells the story of a girl rabbit - recently jilted by her ex bunny boyfriend and out on the town with her friends (all of which persuaded her to go out then as soon as they hit the club buggered off cause she was miserable) Everywhere she looks the boy rabbits want to give her a 'hop'. Of course she still has her ex 'in her' ahem...

We'll post the video soon...

The title: "Bunny Love" - ahh but do they love or just hump a lot? "Bunny Bang" didn't have the same ring to it!

There's something about bunnies bopping in a forest that just boils our beans!

Cheer up love! It's not that bad - yer man coulda got squashed by an 18 wheeler - be warm in the knowledge that he's still alive - albeit with another bunny but hey...

Bears n' Rabbits hmmm - don't know what was going through our minds when we came up with this shot...

Dang! that there's a lot of rabbits... ouch!

Dance rabbit!

Ahhh... the inevitable sequel!

More stuff soon guys!

GK

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG!

So we finally decided to join in this blog thingy!

Hopefully over the coming months we'll grow addicted to this form of internet communication like a fly to... well you know! We hope to share our insights and our art and hope that you will enjoy our work and post comments on our current and upcoming projects, who knows maybe we'll even take notice!

We'll do our best to update as much as possible (I guess everyone says that!) but we will...

...Honest!

GK