Dick Turpin

Hello agian,


As usual I'm late with a post and showing not what I promised ;0) These are some drawings/ concepts from a project I was working on with Paul Parkes. He is now pushing the project on his own with the help of the producer from King Arthur's Disasters. As I have the rights to the drawings/images I have no hesitation in showing them to you.






These two characters were meant to be the main characters and the main plot revolved around them both. Dick Turpin was a notorious highway robber from the 18th century, he had a gang with him at all times who helped him rob and steal from houses and travellers. He was eventually caught and sentenced to death - this is where we would join their story. It is the day before Harry ( leader of Dick's gang ) and Dick plan to escape from York prison. Once they escape they plan to use numerous disguises to help retrieve stashed treasure and escape from York under the noses of the lurking Police, but as ever they always end up back in York having to find another escape route. It is now being developed as an adult based series.


.

Petshop BG's

As promised some BG's from Petshop, sadly this never got made but Cartoon Network did have a look at it but at the time they wanted to do 3D related projects. We're currently developing it again thanks to the success of Arthur's Disasters.

Arthur Images

Hello,

Sorry I've been so sh*t at updating my blog page. I said I'd put up some script examples from Petshop but I can't find them...yet! I found an early concept drawing for Splag from King Arthur's Disasters. I also found hundreds of concept drawings for Petshop, I'll post those as soon as I scan them in, they range from cars, BG's and storyboards. I promise I'll update more often, I've been a very busy boy!

Hello again.

As promised you can now see some of my work. The images I'm putting up in this post come from the year 2000. The name of the project was called 'Pet Shop' I started sketching ideas while I was working on 'Christmas Carol the Movie' for Illuminated Films.

At first I wanted to write a book based on the alphabet which went through and listed one animal from each letter and have a funny poem\story attached. I soon realized that Dr Suess had already done this, so I stopped. Then in 2002 I meet Paul Parkes, a script writer who I later did King Arthur's Disasters with. I showed him my ideas and sketches and we instantly hit it off! By then end of one night we had come up with a synopsis.

It goes a little something like this:

In every episode three spoilt, witless children, bored beyond reason, decide to purchase an animal from a local Pet Shop. However, they never return with a normal pet! Ranging from every creature, such as a huge gorilla with a killer instinct - to a cranky untamed giant scorpion. The training program to domesticate their new pet doesn't always go according to plan. But then, the animal's survival instict is nothing compared to three bored, determined children.

In my next post I'll show you some of the lines from the scripts and more images.You can see how violent it really was!

A little bit about myself

Hello,

A brief history of the man called 'William Ashurst' I was born on 30th November 1975 just outside London and then all of a sudden 19 years had passed and a Teenage Mr Ashurst was studing a degree in 2D Animation at UWE in Bristol, UK. Didn't learn much. So I applied to the London animation school in 1998 to learn the trade, got in, had a great time, learnt alot and meet lots of new friends blah blah blah...Worked on films, adverts and TV series and then everybody fell out of love with 2D. I found myself having to learn 3d computer animation. In the meantime I was developing new ideas and formats for Kids shows with a good friend of mine, Paul Parkes. Eventually through hard work and perseverance one of the ideas was picked up by Zenith Entertainment and CITV. It was called 'The Chronicles of King Arthur '(working title). In April2005 King Arthur's Disasters ( Final name) premiered on CITV and it was a unexpected success. The 2nd series will premiere this September.

While all this was happening I got married and then got my Norwegian wife ( an animator too) pregnant. We were both working in Leeds for a computer games developer as animators\concept artists and decieded we both wanted to bring up our child in Norway. We moved over from the UK in January 2005 and ever since we have both been working for Funcom ( Games Developer) as animators and parents to our crazy, mad , loveable daughter, Maren!

I'll post images of my work soon. You can see how the original character designs I designed for Arthur changed throughout the development of the show and some other stuff!

Speak soon!

Hello!