#gromitunleashed

SHAUN IN THE CITY ARTS TRAIL ANNOUNCED!

2015 is going to be a very BIG year for Shaun the Sheep! Not only is he starring in his own movie in early 2015 which Red Central created the Style Guide for, but it has just been announced that 120 individually designed giant Shaun statues will be popping up in central locations in both London and Bristol in the UK!

Here at RED we love working with Aardman, they are local to us and having created three of the Gromit Unleashed sculptures last year we just had to be involved in the new trail 'Shaun in the city'. We worked closely with Aardman and the Grand Appeal to create new assets and a guide for this worthy cause.

For more info on the art trail go check out: http://www.shauninthecity.org.uk/

I AM THE LUCKIEST PUP ALIVE!! I'm one of the handful of Aardman artists taking part in Gromit Unleashed Hong Kong, an exhibition of 70 5ft Gromit statues by HK artists. I got SUPER LUCKY though because my Gromit has been turned into a 4 metre tall version!!! I got super lucky because of course the lovely Nick Park was going to have the 4m version, but because it's SO big it needs to be made in pieces, and that means unsightly join lines, which would ruin the aesthetics of Nicks smooth design, and I got super duper lucky that my robot design features a tonne of join lines, so I have the HUGE honour of having 'G.R.M.T 02' being 13 feet tall :)

He features a 'tickle-activated escape hatch' on his belly and is fitted with a 'penguin locator' too!

If you're out in Hong Kong, go see the trail in all it's glory from the 21st July at Elements Mall! I can die happy now, a huge design has always been a dream - to have it be a Gromit, well my tiny mind can't handle the awesomeness!!!

Thanks to Merlin Crossingham, Creative Director of Wallace & Gromit, for snapping the pics out in HK and to Aelita Andre, 7 year old child prodigy artist for posing with G.R.M.T. and showing off his size!

VERY stoked to finally be able to share this... for the past few weeks I've been working on a brand new special Gromit statue! I was lucky enough to be commissioned by The Grand Appeal and Aardman to design & paint a Gromit to commemorate a year since the Gromit Unleashed began! As a nod to my Gromit 'Stats', this 'legacy' Gromit was a reverse colourway, Gold & pink, and is covered in illustrated stats & facts from the trail! He was unveiled this morning at his new home at the Gromit Unleashed store at The Mall up at Cribbs Causeway right here in Bristol!

Here's some behind-the-scenes snaps from making the 'Facts' Gromit! Masking off his nose, collar & tail took SO long and because of the shape of him, it was quite the task! I sprayed his details pink first then did the main layers of gold, which took quite a few goings over to get a solid coat! Big loves to Tony, the facilities manager at Aardman for making me my own spray booth on the top floor of the building!!

Once he was painted, it was time to design all his brand new stats & facts, 45 in total, which meant a lot of time in Illustrator! Once they were done and appropriately sized, I printed them out and mocked up where they would go on the body, so they flowed correctly. I chose a gorgeous metallic copper vinyl for the main body of graphics, coupled with a metallic gold for a couple of the 'hidden' facts!

And then came the hardest part - to get the best look, each graphic was laser cut into the vinyl, but the cutter isn't smart enough to know what's a negative space and what's not, it just cuts the shape, so that means you have to physically 'weed' out the parts you don't want by using a scalpel! Thankfully my lovely lady Janey and Gromit Unleashed's Lauren & her husband Chris came over to share the duties! We didn't get as many done as we thought so Jane and I spent the next 48 hours, day & night, weeding until they were done!

Then they were ready for my man Jamie Cross to work his magic and apply the graphics to the body of Gromit! That was a late night but we for there - I painted his eyes on (always absolutely terrifying!) and then he was off to the lacquer shop to have his glossy coat applied, ready for his big day! You can now go see him in all his gold glossy glory at the Gromit Unleashed store at Cribbs Causeway right here in Bristol!!