A 3D drawing tool (still in development) by Rhonda that lets you draw 3D objects with a tablet and trackball.

If anyone was wondering what to get us for Christmas, now you know….

OK, so this is a few years old now, so many of you may have seen it, but now we finally have a platform to share our favourite things, so we’re going to start here!

This amazing animation, based on hand-drawn sketches, created keyframe by keyframe, (no auto-tweening!) was created by Laith Bahrani, of monkeehub animation. He is the creator of the great video for ‘JCB Song’ by Nizlopi, as well as the low morale series of animations, from which this ‘Creep’ character is taken. The low morale series is a must for any office based worker! Laith talks about his inspirations for low morale & the ‘Creep’ video in this post here.

This makes me wish I could pursue more projects like this, so anyone who needs a bit of character flash animation done, just get in touch! Or I suppose if you had the budget, you should probably ask monkeehub!

With a move to new offices on the horizon, we have decided to make the most of our Summer and relocate the offices to the Midi-Pyrenee region of the South of France for a month. Sounds very glamorous, but in reality we’re just going to stay with my mum for a bit!

It’ll be business as usual, as we will be working from her home offices & will be fully available for anything you need. On our return mid-August, we will be posting full details of our new office, still based in Woolacombe, North Devon.

Oh, and for any scallywags thinking of burgling us now that I’ve announced our absence – don’t bother, the whole place is empty. Sorry.

After many years of admiring legendary rock band Spinal Tap from afar, I finally got to meet them backstage at Glastonbury this year, where Nicky & I take a little jolly each year working backstage production on the Other Stage dressing rooms. Not only does that get us a nice private camping spot behind the stage, with oak-panelled loos & showers, all-you-can-eat gourmet food & free booze, but also access-all-areas passes to the Pyramid stage. Result! I was more excited than normal this year when I realised that my heroes Spinal Tap were playing the Pyramid Stage on Saturday afternooon.

After their cracking set, I went to meet them, hopefully for a chat & a bit of a stalk on the way back to their rooms. Eagerly clutching my 1982 soundtrack album, I lost my cool and for the first time ever, approached a band to get autographs. Bass -master Derek Smalls was excited at the site of some vinyl for a change & was amazing, inviting David St Hubbins back for a chat, who then invited me to come through to their dressing room to meet Nigel Tufnel, the man with whom goto11 would have to be called something else!

The guys were amazingly nice & I was struggling not to crack up, as they stayed fantastically in character the whole time (me too, calling him Mr St Hubbins at one point).

The whole weekend was a blast, & we got to see dozens of bands, with a healthy dose of stalking backstage & in the dressing rooms. My highlights this year were, Fleet Foxes, The Whip, Spinal Tap (of course), VV Brown, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Franz Ferdinand & best of all, The Prodigy, closing up Sunday night on our stage with a belter. The guys went mental on stage & look completely alarming, but were as sweet as anyone you could hope to meet & while their entourage got through 3 cases of Veuve in the after party, Keith, Liam & Maxim went back to their room for a nice roast dinner then went to bed. Rock & Roll!!

Looking forward to next year already!

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Saw this today on the BBC news page. These guys are strapping a Typhoon jet engine from a EuroFighter onto a ‘car’, which should see them get up to speeds over 1000mph, well over the speed of sound at ground level.

They won’t be ready to give it a go until 2011 & I have no idea if they will make it, but the CGi animation here sure makes the whole project look cool…

I had put a quick mention of this up before I saw it, as I was excited enough just over the trailer, but I actually got a chance to see it last week.

As usual, someone will always agree with a Daily Mail film reviewer & complain … read more »