Dennis & Gnasher Unleashed!

For around half of 2019 and most of 2020, I was working as the animation director on a series called Dennis and Gnasher Unleashed! It was a fantastic experience where I had the opportunity to supervise a team of around 30 talented animators and layout artists whilst creating 52, 11 minute, episodes. Even once you have removed the titles and credits, that’s over eight and a half hours of animation!

The series is based upon characters from the long running Beano comic which I grew up reading as a child. Since I was slightly obsessed by the Beano when I was younger, this was obviously something of a childhood dream come true!

Not only did I want to do a good job for my own satisfaction and for that of my childhood self, given the long history of the comic, I also felt the pressure to honour that legacy.

In addition to the usual pressures of trying to produce a series of this complexity, we were around half way through animation when the country went into lockdown as a result of the pandemic. This led to the second half of the series being animated with the entire team working remotely. The fact that we not only stayed on schedule but also maintained the quality of the animation being produced is a real testament to the team involved.

Toward the end of 2020, once animation on the series was complete, I moved on to start another exciting project, the details of which I will save for its own dedicated post!

If you are interested to watch the series, it is available on the BBC or Netflix in the UK and clips can also be found on the Beano website.