| Adam Phillips | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 1971 (age 41) Narromine, New South Wales, Australia |
| Occupation | Animator |
Adam Phillips (born January 1971) is an Australian freelance animator whose online alias is Chluaid (pronounced 'Clyde'). His main body of animation work, for which he is best known, consists of flash animation compositions published on his website Bitey Castle and on the flash portal Newgrounds (there, as of March 2010, his movies have over 14 million views and he is one of the highest ranked artists). He is the creator of the Brackenwood series.
Adam Phillips was a featured artist at the Adobe Design Center for the month of December, 2006.[1] The alternate soundtrack for the YuYu in that link was composed by Lee Miller.
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Adam Phillips was born and raised in Narromine, New South Wales. He displayed a precocious artistic enthusiasm early in life:
My mother recognized my talent for drawing when I was a toddler, and she maintains that I could hold a pencil correctly before my two legs could support me. I would sit on the floor for hours drawing spiders on my fingers and toes, and filling sheets of butcher's paper with doodles and scribbles."[2]
In 1989, Phillips moved to Queensland to find work, and was later injured in an industrial accident. During his convalescence he dedicated himself to drawing, and in 1993 was hired by Disney to work as a tweener in Sydney. He was promoted in 1995 to the position of character animator, and in 1998 to effects director, a role in which he worked on several sequels to well-known Disney films.
In 2000, Phillips began his first animations in Flash, focusing on stories remembered from his childhood. Phillips is a devoted Ween fan and his flash work soon grew to include an official video for the Ween song Transdermal Celebration, as well as a winning entry in the cartoon category of the Flash Forward Film Festival in early 2003. Later that year, Phillips created Bitey of Brackenwood, the second episode in his Brackenwood series and runner up in The Greatest Story Never Told (TGSNT) flash competition. During this period, Phillips also began writing book chapters for flash guides.
At the end of 2004 Phillips left Disney "to pursue [his] own interests." Since that time he has produced much content for his Brackenwood setting, including Prowlies at the River, said to be in the Top 5 Most Influential Flash Films of all time. The movie also won the TGSNT 2 competition's grand prize. He has also continued to do outside work as a freelance animator, writer and special effects designer for clients such as Kelloggs, EA Games and Wizards of the Coast (Dungeons and Dragons).
Additional to plans for a television series and various books set in his Brackenwood world, Phillips is teamed up with a co-writer, working together on a cinematic Brackenwood feature film.
Adam Phillips' long term project is making a Brackenwood feature film, and he has stated that there is a far larger story which has been only hinted at in his short Brackenwood episodes. As of August 2009, the Brackenwood feature film script is in development.
Phillips is also working on the "Bitey Castle Academy" which would teach art and animation techniques to other artists. The 'Academy' section of his website so far offers 4 chapters of a downloadable ebook on how to create graphics and animation in Adobe Flash CS3.
Since 2007, Adam has been using ToonBoom software and has been quoted in many interviews as saying it is his "new favorite" animation software. He used ToonBoom Animate Pro for the most recent Dungeons & Dragons shorts. Unofficially, but condoned by ToonBoom, he is posting Animate 2 screencapture demonstrations on his YouTube channel.
At the moment, apart from a Brackenwood feature film, Adam is writing up a fresh new series separate from Brackenwood. It is untitled but information occasionally pops up on his blog and Twitter page.