David Bunting Animaton

An internship at Walt Disney Feature Animation, France sparked a love of depicting the natural world through the art of drawn FX.

I’ve animated organic hand-drawn effects in feature films, television, commercials, and short films.

Feature Film credits include The Tigger Movie for Disney at Tandem Films and “The Thunderbirds Movie title sequence, directed by Smith & Foulkes at Nexus Productions. Effects for TV and short films include designing and animating key effects for Cartoon Network pilot, 100 Head Edddy at Hot Head Films, and classic 4mations short films, How to Cope with Death and The Astronomers Sun.

More recently, I animated effects in my directorial documentary debut, No One is an Island and a featurette of A Christmas Carol (2001) for Lawrence Batley Theatre during lockdown.

Transitioning from paper, I created a series of Official ToonBoom Harmony tutorials on hand-drawn effects, from animation to compositing.

Effects Animation (in order of appearance):

• Christmas Carol (2001) animated theatre special, Toonboom Harmony

• No One is an Island (2024) short film, ToomBoom Harmoany

• The Astronomers Sun, (2010) Duchy Pade Films for Channel 4 Television - Charcoal wind FX and light sparks

• Boots advert, 2000s Nexus Productions, Hand drawn

• The Tigger Movie (2000), Tandem Films Entertainment for Walt Disney Animation, FX Animator

• A Christmas Carol 2000s Illuminated Films, Hand-drawn water

• Wheat Thins commercial 2000s, Nexus Productions

• Personal project, water, ToonBoom Harmony

• How to Cope with Death (2000s) Tandem Films, Hand drawn fire FX.

• '100 Head Eddy' (2009) Hot Head Productions for Cartoon Network Pilot: FX Animator

• 'Thunderbirds' Feature film title sequence, Nexus Productions (2004), directed by Smith and Foulkes.

For The Astronomers Sun we were keen that to ensure that the effects reflected the style of the hand crafted world. We used a combination of effects elements, optical, miniature, drawn and digital, with many shots combining several techniques to achieve the final look.

For the transformation sequence, I added hand drawn sparks and vaporous smoke. The line tests show my animated smoke effects in charcoal, (inverted to white and composited over b+w reference prints of the stop-motion animation). 

ABOVE: Drawn effects design and animation from films and TV.

RIGHT: Today, I often employ my FX design skills in storyboards, to give the director and CG FX teams quick FX design concepts in what are often fast paced television schedules.