Emmanuelle Walker mostly works in animation, both as a director and animator. Her past projects include a long list of short films as well as work for big-name clients such as Lacoste, Vigin, and character design for Disney. However, her illustration work is worth a good look. Here are a few examples as well as some gifs produced for Swissinfo and a recent animated New Year’s greeting with process shots.
What caught our eye from Emmanuelle’s illustration portfolio was the balance of elegance with lighthearted humour. Although a lot of the subjects she draws are fun and a little tongue-in-cheek, the characters within them are lean and graceful.
You can tell that her experience in animation and the necessary figure studies that go with it have helped her to develop a keen sense for positioning. While clearly knowing how to emphasise the beauty in the human figure using proportions, there are also more subtle things going on in the posing. The smallest twists make the difference, be it the flick of the wrist in the lady with the dog, the lifted heel of the tattooist, or the inwardly turned ankle of the lady with the vase.
I’m an Animation Director and Illustrator, currently living and working in London. For my illustrations, I work more and more directly in Photoshop. I always draw an extremely rough little sketch on paper just for the composition and all the rest is done in Photoshop. I still draw on good old paper for character design assignments for which I use a light blue Chromacolor pencil and then I clean it up with a simple HB pencil. But,I don’t really illustrate for a living, I would love to, but I mostly work in the animation field. I am now represented by Sherbet who represents me througout the UK.
Besides that, I am currently developing a new short film in my free time. We are still in the early stages of development so I can’t show or say too much, but the final film could hopefully see the light of day by the end of 2013!
© Emmanuelle Walker, 2013