AEAF Awards

One of my recent projects has won an award! Cool.
It's nice to know that all the hard work on this amazing project has been recognised by the Australian Effects and Animation Festival. We won game trailer of the year for the Dawn of War II Cinematic which was a 3 month project I completed for Plastic Wax.

I'm now animation director over there and enjoying every minute of working with this fantastically talented team.

You can see the trailer in all it's loveliness here:
Dawn of War II Cinematic
Dawn of War II Alt Ending Cinematic
The first one was the original E3 2008 trailer. The second is the alternative ending which includes the last fight sequence and released at GC 2008.

These trailers have had a great media response.

Moving around the corner

Our landlord told us he was thinking about selling the house....poo!! We really enjoyed living here, the house was amazing. As we were about to go back to the UK for Andy & Nat's wedding, we thought we better get our skates on and find somewhere else to live. The landlord wasn't sure of his timing, but if he decided to give us notice while we were in the UK, we'd be in big trouble. So we rushed around like idiots and found another place, just around the corner!! This house was great too, it had it's own distinctive style - spiral staircase and bedroom in the attic! More importantly for us, it was still in Glebe!

Packing up in Colbourne Ave

 

Our new home

 

Unpacking in Talfourd St

 

Our new, colourful kitchen!

 

A couple of friends I see everyday at work.

Chris works in the Cherry Bean cafe next door to the Glass Artists Gallery and keeps me sane when I need a break by serving me with the finest coffee in Glebe

 

Zena is a beautiful Pharoah Hound who guards the glass in Maureen's gallery. She's a bit of a teenager at the moment and doesn't like doing as she's told, but here she's looking very angelic!

 

Xmas break at Treetops

Phil and Bianca were still travelling, so we took advantage again, and stayed at Treetops between Christmas day and New Year.
Sparky found a cool place to curl up and undertake serious cat-business (sleeping)!

Deb & Aladar's wedding

Hen's night!Nick & Emma

Xmas BBQ

Gav & Jean had some friends round for a BBQ in true Aussie style!
Sheilas preparing the grub and blokes sat around!

Tasmania

Dean and I spent a weekend in Hobart after I'd organised & attended a Registrar's Conference there. We had a trip by boat to Port Arthur, a historic penal settlement.

Bondi & stuff

Here's a few other photos from October:
Bondi Beach-scape





This is from the annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibition near Bondi.









BBQ at Gav & Jean's.

Pulpit Rock, Blue Mountains

This was a trip to the Blue Mountains with friends Gav, Jean, Deb & Aladar. We stayed at Treetops, which was kindly 'loaned' to us while Phil and Bianca were on their travels around the world!

Tey's 30th

Here are some photos from the weekend we spent on Pittwater, celebrating Tey's 30th birthday. We hired two katamarans and and went cruising around Pittwater for the weekend! It was great weather, and we had great fun!

Tone & Trace come and play!

Yeayyyy! It's been great having Tony and Tracy over to stay. They're not new to Australia or Sydney, but we still managed to show them some new sights!
We went up to Barrenjoey Lighthouse on the Northern Beaches and had a lovely picnic on the rocks at the top.
Dean took Tone fishing at Bradley's Head and they both got squeamish when a fish had the nerve to get caught on Tone's hook!!!





























Tone & Trace had met Phil on their previous trip down under, so we took them over to see Phil and Bianca in their new house in the Blue Mountains - called Treetops - so beautiful! And of course, we took them to the Three Sisters and did a 6 hour walk - the usual stuff...!
Oh, and the obligatory trip to the Hunter Valley for a well earned piss-up!!

Perisher Blue

Our second trip snowboarding in Australia! A bigger posse this time and we thought we'd go to the other main resort in New South Wales, which is twinned interestingly with Fernie in Canada! Pity it doesn't have the same amount of snow as Fernie!








Perisher is an OK place to board, but there weren't enough slopes open (due to lack of snow), so after a weekend, we really felt like we'd had enough of the same old runs. There certainly wasn't anywhere to go off-piste - don't know if this changes when there is snow!
Transport was annoying - getting to the apartment was a bit of a trial, as the resort doesn't allow ANY cars at all to park overnight. So we had to unpack everything and then take the 3 cars back to the last village and get the train shuttle back.









However, that didn't stop us having a fantastic time!