Operating under the name Puppetsquid, I began working for small animation studios in and around Manchester's Northern Quarter in early twenty-twelve and, thanks to our narrow escape with the mayan calendar that same year, I have continued to do so since.
Prior to this I had dabbled in many different fields, gaining minor stage, radio, television, and film work while also maintaining decent grades and entering various competitions, picking up such accolades as runner-up young poet laureate in sixth-form and winning a sweet bicycle in a regional art competition when I was five, (which really should have been the opening image on my showreel, let's be honest)
With A-levels both theatrical and scientific I somewhat inevitably found myself taking a Special Effects course at university. I was particularly excited by their Pyrotechnic and Animatronic modules but during my first year I found a strong affinity for CGI and Animation. My final major project combined all these elements; I built an animatronic puppet onto which I tracked a CGI set of animated eyes, and then very nearly blew up the ten-year-old library computer I tried to render it on.
I graduated with a first and managed to get into stable work within the year with a CG-generalist role on a Nat-Geo documentary with Firestep, while still working weekends at Wilkinsons, then later became fully self-employed. I have been lucky enough to work with many great studios such as Kilogramme, Flipbook, and Studio Liddell and, in the interim, have won (and helped win) several industry awards; from Big Chip Awards through to Cartridge Save's 3D Print Cup.
Recently I have been working as Lead Animator at Gelato Studios, a new company started by fellow graduate Eddy Strickland. Much of this work cannot be used on my own reel yet, but some can be seen on the official Gelato website.
(The original)
