Working with Blue Zoo Animators!!

I recently had the privilege to work under lead Animators at Blue Zoo Animation Studios, in London! A massive Paddington and Smeds and Smoos fan, I'm still processing the whole experience now! But Damon and Steve were incredible mentors, guiding me and a few of my course mates through the creation of a short slapstick Animation.

'Teddy Rig' Courtesy of © Blue Zoo Media Group Ltd.

Meet Teddy! A robot on a space shuttle, responsible for its day to day maintenance and cleaning. The problem is, he's not the shiniest bot in the shed and often messes up resulting in disaster! Or at the very least a massive inconvenience!

For this project, I was assigned the task of creating a short animated sketch that told this story. I chose to make Teddy a massive K-pop fan, and task him with the job of making his boss a cuppa tea. Easy right? Nope! Not with an Alien Fly on the loose.

To produce this short film, I created Storyboards and an Animatic which Damon and Steve had to approve, before I carried out 8passes of Character Animation. Along the way, it was essential to develop my animation further with their feedback and guidance. I then finished the project by presenting my work in a short presentation. I was so pleased with the finished result, and you can take a look below!!

'Teddy and the Fly' Written and Animated by Steven Mastin

A massive thankyou to Damon and Steve for taking their time to inspire and train the next generation of Character Animators, and a big thank you to our lecture Ari Sarafopoulos for scoring us this fantastic opportunity!

I hope to work with Blue Zoo Animation again in the future!