Manchester Printworks: Pufferfish and Astronauts
From July 2022 to March 2024, I worked with Flipbook Studio to create content for Europe’s largest digital ceiling installed at the Manchester-based entertainment venue, Printworks. The ceiling consisted of three large unconventionally shaped screens and a 16:9 horizontal wall screen for supporting material. The extreme size and odd dimensions of the screens were an interesting problem to solve which resulted in a series of unique shows that played to the strengths of the format.
​I provided direction, animation, and character designs for a number of shows adhering to briefs provided by the client. The following is a breakdown of the work I provided for the Pufferfish and Astronauts projects. You can find breakdowns of my work on other Printworks shows here: Cloud Doodles, Printlings
Pufferfish
One of the briefs we were given by the client was to create an animation involving pufferfish swimming around the printworks screens before bumping into each other and puffing up, filling the screens.
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I was tasked with designing the pufferfish and creating a series of animations to be used by Flipbook's simulation artists to populate the screens.
Here are some of the exploration sketches, experimenting with the design of the pufferfish, and the approved design.
The final pufferfish animation was made up of several cycles that could be extended and blended into each other. This would allow the animations to be offset from each other in the simulation and give the artists complete freedom in deciding when cycles should transition. The result was a playful and visually striking mix of simulation and hand-keyed animation.
Astronauts
I worked on this project also as a character designer and animator. The brief involved stylised astronauts and aliens floating in space to classical music. They were to showcase a variety of personalities through dancing, mishaps and other interactions.
I began with the design of the astronaut. The client had specified that they wanted the design to be cute and appealing. I first started with designs where the face was visible behind the visor. This was scrapped in favour of keeping the character simple and cute whilst more efficient to animate.
I then created further designs with more focus on personality being conveyed through the suit and helmet rather than the face. After some rounds of feedback and iteration, we settled on the final design.
For the alien, the brief was to create a dog-like creature. After my initial sketches, we decided to go with something slightly more humanoid, but retaining many of those dog-like personality qualities.
During this project's animation phase, I created a variety of bespoke animations as well as cycles that could be used to compliment these animations, fill the time between key events and draw the audiences' attention to different parts of the screens
My cycles were also used entirely to populate the supporting 16:9 screen to great effect, adding some life to a previously ambient scene.
The overall result was an entertaining spectacle that effectively used the zero-gravity setting and unique format to create an appealing and humorous show.