Brown Bag Films & the Italian Dolomites

I haven’t been around now for a couple of months but it’s been a really fantastic time, as me and Regi headed down to the beautiful Italian Dolomites for our vacay, but as I’ve just recently re-located to Dublin, Ireland – I haven’t got access to my iMac, and all the 1,300 photos I took from the vacation. For a small teaser, I uploaded this one to Flickr, and thought I’d share it here:

Brenta Group, Italian Dolomites

Also, in some very exciting news, I’ve re-located to the lovely city of Dublin to work for the really fantastic studio, Brown Bag Films. I’m now into my second week, and the vibe within the studio is just perfect, everyone is super friendly, and we’re working on some really great projects. Once I have all my stuff over here, I’ll be sure to post more information about it all soon.

Brown Bag Films

Syr Wynff a Plwmsan, y Cartŵn (the cartoon)

Over the past year I’ve been working on an animated version of my favorite show ‘Syr Wynff a Plwmsan‘, but unfortunately, S4C got in touch with me yesterday saying that they would not commission the show. So now, I feel I can show some of the work, as it’s been hidden away for a good year or so.

Here’s my version of the characters, all rendered out, as a teaser image for the show. I worked closely with both actors to get the characters to feel as close as possible to what they looked like in the 80’s. Plwmsan still needed a few more tweaks to him, but on a whole, it was nice to see them both working well together in 3D space:

Syr Wynff a Plwmsan Teaser poster

Here’s a story board panel, based on a new episode Mici Plwm wrote specially for the animated version I drew in Photoshop, and a screen grab of the kitchen set I was building, based on the original Welsh type kitchen from the TV show:

Storyboard panel
Work in Progress, The Kitchen set

The original episodes started by Syr Wynff greeting the audience in front of their house, and by letting the audience know what brilliant plan they had for the day (usually stuff for making them both rich, which never worked out). In the end, after talking with Mici, we decided against doing this for the animated version, but as a small test, I did build the set, and did a quick animation, just to see if the characters were working ok.

Front of the house, test render

And here’s a quick animation test I did, still in blocking mode, about 40% done (hence the rough-ness of it).

[youtube width=”645″ height=”375″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvQShQMEI5c&[/youtube]

It’s sad having to give up the project, as I’ve spent a lot of time being immersed into the life of Syr Wynff a Plwmsan, but I’m personally not calling it quits. I will spend some time on it here and there, perhaps create a Youtube channel for quick 30 second shorts or something. We shall see!

All the production so far has been documented over on my Syr Wynff a Plwmsan blog.

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For those interested in learning more about the project, there’s an interview with me about Syr Wynff a Plwmsan, y cartŵn in this weeks ‘Golwg’ magazine.

I’r rhai sydd hefo diddordeb clywed mwy am y project ‘Syr Wynff a Plwmsan, Y Cartŵn, mae yna erthygl amdani yn y cylchgrawn ‘Golwg’ yr wythnos yma:

Erthygl ‘Golwg’ yr wythnos yma

New Animation Showreel

I have just updated my showreel with some of my shots I did for the ‘You Get Me‘ music video I did over at Arx Anima:

All the information about the reel, and shots can be seen on the Showreel page : Iestyn Roberts – Animation Showreel. I’m currently on the lookout for some animation work, please feel free to get in touch if you require some animators.

I also want to thank my super amazing girlfriend for being so incredible to me whilst I’ve been working on my reel. Diolch cariad.

Dyffryn Nantlle

As I’m currently back in Wales, every evening I try to head on out to the mountains with my camera, to have a break from my computer. Here’s a couple I’ve taken this last week:

Llyn Nantlle

Yr olygfa o dop Mynydd Mawr

The first is of the fantastic Llyn Nantlle. I was really lucky to capture this – after driving like a fool in the new van to try and capture the great contrast between the mountains and the skies, I only took one photo, and the sun sank really fast behind the clouds, and after hanging around for a good 30 mins, there was no sign of it ever coming back. But I was really happy with the result.

The second if the view from the summit of my favorite mountain – Mynydd Mawr, looking over towards the Nantlle Ridge. The lake from which the first image is taken from can be seen in the Valley below.

Nant-y-Betws

As the sun was blasting, and the promise of a lovely sunset was imminent. I headed up Craig Cwmbychan, (the ‘head’ of the elephant that is Mynydd Mawr) to try and capture the sunset, blasting through Nant-Y-Betws below.

Nant-y-Betws

So here’s Nant-y-Betws, looking over from Craig Cwmbychan, Mynydd Mawr towards Moel Eilio, and Snowdon on the far right. Llyn Cwellyn can also be seen below.

Tiss a lovely Valley.

[Arx Anima] Disney’s Tom and Angela – “You Get Me” music video

Over a few weeks in April, I got a fantastic opportunity to work with the great people over at Arx Anima, on Disney’s Tom and Angle’s music video – “You Get Me”.

[youtube width=”853″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtv_VSw_nhg&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

It was a great experience for me, working with some great animators, and I’m extremely impressed with how everything turned out.

My shots are from 0:38 to the 1:08 – the dream sequence. It was a great little 10 shot sequence, and I was really happy to have continuos shots like that.

If you liked it, please feel free to share it: Arx Anima – Tom and Angela “You Got Me”

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Since it’s release, the video currently has 113,000,000 view on Youtube, which is phenomenal! Arx Ania has just released a quick ‘making of’ video, which features a few of my scenes. Here’s the video:

[youtube width=”853″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIbqAUX_ZsM[/youtube]

Llanberis Pass

Whilst closely watching the sun setting on Monday, I headed up the beautiful Llanberis pass, hoping that the sun will be blasting right up the valley, as it sometimes does – but I wasn’t in luck. The sun did however, set behind Llechog and Grib Goch, with a bright red hue.

Bwlch Llanberis - Llanberis Pass

This was taken just on the PYG track, Pen-Y-Pass. Grib Goch is the steep pyramid shaped peak on the left, while on the right of the valley, we have the terrain sweeping up to Bryn Du, and making it’s way up to Glyder Fawr.