I was approached by director Prasanna Puwanarajah to create a short bit of animation to be used briefly in the short film Spoof or Die, which was part of the 2012 film selection for Channel 4's annual 'Coming Up' program, showcasing the work of new British filmmakers. The team were looking for a cute, but possibly slightly creepy looking animated rabbit flying about as if in a cartoon aimed at young children. One of the lead character's younger sister would be watching the cartoon during a living-room scene while dressed as her favourite rabbit character. While only a snippet of the animation was seen in the final edit of the scene, I've included the whole animation here along with a great new soundtrack by composer Sam Dudley, as the project was so great to work on and is still one of my favourites!

Character Design
A variety of initial designs for the Rabbit character. I always had in mind the proportions I wanted to go for with the character, but the only early description I was given was that the character should be a pink cartoon-looking rabbit, so I tried a couple of different looks at first.
Design progression of the Rabbit character. The overall design is what I went with in final, and the eye designs preferred by the filmmakers can be seen in the top right corner of the image. The character was christened 'Nicholas' by the Director Prasanna, but this is never mentioned in the film itself.


The rough animation was completed in a few hours due to the quick turnaround of the film - the filmmakers needed the animation footage to be ready for the day they shot the living-room scene as there was a possibility that the television would be visible in other camera angles.

View more info on Spoof or Die, written by Stacey Gregg and directed by Prasanna Puwanarajah (Channel 4/Touchpaper TV/Northern Ireland Screen)