Moho Featured Artist: Dave Cockburn

Mario Quinones @ 2023-02-07

This week our Moho Featured Artist is the talented British animator Dave Cockburn! 🔥 Dave uses Moho as his main 2D animation software ✨

Tell us about yourself

Last century, I studied graphic design at college but then swapped to illustration and for some strange reason decided to make an animated film for my final project. It was called Herb Sachet and his Big Band. I was totally clueless about animation, had very little equipment but managed to cobble a short film together. It got me work in the London animated commercials industry and after a couple of years I got a job as an assistant animator at Dick Williams studios on the Thief and The Cobbler film. It was not an easy production. I ended up doing background layouts and working out other people's camera moves. I resigned before the film was taken away from Dick.
I then went back to animated commercials eventually directing them before getting burned out and moving into illustration.

I thought my animation days were over again but then, around 2002 I discovered Moho and I was able to do whole projects on my own on my PC. In those days I used it mainly for web and interactive animation that I put together in Flash. Since then I have worked solo on TV commercials, short films, e-cards and corporate videos alongside Illustration work.

In 2021 I was contacted by the Moho team to do a webinar and from that was invited to join the amazing 'My Fathers Dragon team'. Now I am back in the wild pursuing a carefree freelance lifestyle.

Where do you get inspiration?

Coffee?

I don't know, inspiration is everywhere. I don't really struggle in that department. I love good drawing, and probably theatre rather than film. They manage to do so much with so little. Something all animators can be inspired by.

No, thinking about it…Definitely coffee.

What’s your hardware setup?

Hardware set up
PC AMD Ryzen 3900X 12-core
Huion Kamvas 24 plus
Razer Nostromo programmable gaming keypad
Vertical Mouse
Gaggia Classic espresso machine
Eurika Mignon specialita grinder

What do you like best about Moho?

It is relatively quick and easy to get from daft idea to finished animation in a short period of time. If it is a specific feature I would have to say smart bone actions. I still remember a time before they existed and rigging was waaaay more time consuming. You had to add extra bones with constraints to try and fix joint distortions. It was very much trial and error.

How has Moho helped you in your creative process?

It's given me the ability to quickly do a finished animation, in a variety of styles, on my own without the absolute agony of having to draw inbetweens.

What’s your favorite project made with Moho?

Oooh that’s a tough one. My usual answer would be 'it's the next project', but My Fathers dragon is probably up there. That was a team effort so I'm not sure I can claim it. My current favourite would have to be one of my short animations, probably this year's Christmas card. I'm really pleased with the idea and the more drawn look of the final animation. That will change next time you ask though.

How has Moho improved your pipeline workflow?

It is so quick and versatile. Anything I can draw I can animate, vector or bitmap.
A project usually starts as a scribble on a bit of paper. I then refine it In Clip Studio Paint ( I can do any frame by frame animation I need there) and export is as roughs to trace or a bitmaps to animate in Moho. After rigging and animation I export scenes as bitmaps and put it all together for export in DaVinci resolve.
There is very little friction in that pipeline even if I need changes.