Peter Taylor-Gill

Usually, on a project, I would create a Storyboard, but for my work on J’sommes La Dgaîngue (@la_dgaingue ) I decided to take a different approach. From early doors, we knew we wanted to create this piece as a "live" musical performance. Having never storyboarded a live gig before I honestly wasn't really sure where to start with it! I have, however, shot live performances before, so I figured I'd pluck from that experience instead. This is where working in 3D was fantastic for this project. Once I had the scene and the characters, I could treat the digital space like a physical venue. I dropped the track into the project file and "flew" around the stage with my virtual cameras, figuring out which characters to focus on as the song progressed exactly as if I were directing a live multi-cam shoot. Of course, framings and timings changed as animation was added, but it was a fun, fluid way to plan and gave us a good idea of pacing and end comp early on.

For my project "J’sommes La Dgaîngue" last year, I used multiple talented people as my motion reference/capture for the musicians. But for the character that didn't have to look like they were actually playing instruments or have any technical knowledge, there was me! Here I am doing the motion reference for the character Flieur in some of the opening shots. I like to think I did a good job of capturing that childlike wonder 😂 Traditionally, I would only capture this sort of motion reference as exactly that... Reference. But with a short window to animate several characters, I leant into motion capture to help things along. I used @autodeskflowstudio to turn my single-angle (and sometimes a bit poorly framed) videos into the foundation of my character animations. By generating the initial motion capture from video reference, it took care of the heavy lifting in a fraction of the time, leaving me free to finalise, tweak, and fine-tune the performance exactly how I wanted. Anyways, the project still has a criminally low view count, so if you want to check out on my website, the link is in my bio!🙏

Last, but not least. The Drummer of La Dgaîngue, La Sirène! When we were choosing the figures from Jersey myths and legends for each of the roles in the band, we ended up landing on La Sirène as the drummer. Beyond the fact that a mermaid drummer wailing on a drum kit in a rock pool is a top-notch visual (and yes, that definitely influenced the vote!), we thought that the percussion of the drums and the crashing of the waves she lives among was an awesome match. In Jersey folklore, La Sirène is sometimes framed as the herald of the storms. By making her the drummer, we’re translating that crashing of the sea into a musical rhythm. She isn't just from the ocean, she embodies its power and rhythm. When designing her I wanted to steer away from the traditional delicate mermaid tropes, instead wanting to give her a body-positive design that prioritises strength and presence, making her feel like a true force of nature. We don't often see mermaids with this kind of shape, and we wanted her to feel like a character who is comfortable and confident in her own skin while she’s rocking out. La Sirène is the final member of the band to be showcased, and I’ve honestly loved the process of bringing all these characters to life. It’s been a joy reimagining Jèrriais myths and legends for the 2020's and i'm stoked to share more processes and behind the scenes of La Dgaîngue in future! #CharacterDesign #Animation #JerseyCI #Jèrriais #LaSirène #BodyPositivity #MusicVideo #LaDgaîngue

Closing in on the last of my La Dgaîngue character turntables! This time I’m dropping in with La Vioge, possibly the most sinister of the bunch in traditional Jersey folklore. The real challenge here was taking a boogeyman-type figure, renowned for cracking ankles and dragging people back to his lair, and turning him into a chill character for a younger audience. In the world of La Dgaîngue, all the characters are just misunderstood! La Vioge is often described as a scarecrow demon, a dark figure lurking in your peripheral vision, waiting for the moment to pounce. How do you take that and make it fun? By making him the bassist, of course. Bassists are often stereotyped as the quiet, mysterious members of the band. Not seeking the spotlight, but keeping the rhythm together. I thought we could take this lone, lurking figure and reimagine him as a stoic introvert. He keeps his hood up because he doesn't want the attention, letting Fai, the lead singer, take centre stage while he stays back and holds down the groove. Plus, since he famously haunts the deep lanes of St. Peter’s Valley, the low, low tones of a bass just felt like a perfect match. It was awesome getting to subvert such a dark legend into something a bit more fun! I’d love to hear what you think of his transition from ankle cracker to toe tapper!

This is The Black Dog, a character from my animated music video "J’sommes La Dgaîngue" by La Dgaîngue. It's a character-focused 3D project inspired by myths and legends from Jersey. In folklore, the Black Dog of Bouley Bay was said to prowl the coast. A fierce, glowing-eyed creature in the dark. These stories were likely a way of stopping people poking around coves where smugglers hid their wares. The whole idea behind the video is re-framing these traditionally spooky characters as misunderstood rather than scary, they just want to have fun with friends like everyone else! With this design, I wanted to keep the traditionally scary elements (big fangs, glowing red eyes, looming figure) while softening the shapes and proportions to make him feel more kid-friendly. He might look intimidating at first glance, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy. Also to tie him back to the smuggler legend, he’s rocking a gold chain. Basically, still hopefully scary enough to start a myth, just not actually scary! A couple of small design changes happened in the move from 2D to 3D. Mostly it was about keeping him feeling more dog/wolf-like, going for a larger chest and committing to paws rather than hands. BD was also originally meant to be playing a keytar, but that changed pretty quickly when it became very obvious he wasn’t hitting the right notes. I’m not a musician, and unlike the other instruments, I didn’t have access to anyone who could play keytar for proper motion reference, so it made sense to make the change to a traditional keyboard where the keys being played would be less obvious! He also ended up being the only character with a fully modelled mouth rather than a 2D plane. Because of the geometry of his face, the 2D plane approach just didn’t translate as well as it did with the other characters, so he became the only character with a fully modelled and rigged mouth. You can check out the Black Dog in action in J’sommes La Dgaîngue on my website, link in my bio!

When designing (William the) wisp, more than the other characters colour became super imporant. With only a few simple shapes, eyes and headphones, there wasn't much detail to lean on for personality or mood. This meant that colour became the primary storytelling tool for Wisp! For a will-o’-the-wisp, that greeny/yellow sits right in a nice sweet spot, reading as ethereal, unnatural, and a bit magical. It’s a colour people already associate with things a bit spooky, (straight away gives that scooby doo ghost vibe!) A colder blue felt distant or sad, a hot red felt a bit to fiery or demonic. The green-yellow lives in a more ambiguous space, a bit uncanny but not threatening and that ambiguity is exactly what I wanted from Wisp!

Meet Fai the... uhh.. Fae! Or more accurately a P'tits Faitchieaux (little fairy folk). Fai is the Lead singer of La Dgaîngue, the Jersey Folklore animated musicians and she is by far the character that gave me the most headaches! Long hair and wings was a fun to navigate. She was the character with the most screentime, so out of all the band members, she definitely got the most time spent on her rig. If I was to revisit this rig, I would almost certainly be looking to look at a more dynamic way of rigging the hair and dress. At the time my logic was to save time by avoiding simulations, but if I went round again, I think it would be well worth it!

Nearly a month down in 2026 and having a look back at some of my favourite work of 2025 whilst I'm starting to rejig my website. Definitely my favourite project of the year was my music video for La Dgaîngue, a virtual band who sing both in English and Jèrriais (the ancient language of my little home island Jersey) Flieur is one of the main characters in the video. Although she's not in the band, she is the one who stumbles across them performing deep in the woods on the headlands in St Brelades. Trying to do a bit of a push on the video as it has criminally low views (you can watch it on my website btw, link in bio) So keep tuned for more BTS of the production and to meet the full cast of La Dgaîngue

When a founder tells you your work created a “step change” in their business, you pay attention. A recent client put it better than I could: Their brand and website weren’t doing justice to their ambition. They needed clearer messaging, a stronger identity, and a site that made their value obvious at a glance. What changed things wasn’t luck – it was a clear plan, good communication, and a team who cared about every detail. Two collaborators who made that possible: Tom Declat – Webflow genius who built the website and custom-coded the savings calculator. Peter Taylor-Gill – who took my chaotic briefs and turned them into the stream graphics that pulled the whole experience together. But also the Rendesco team who are a joy to work with – collaborative, decisive, and not afraid of bold ideas. The kind of client partnership that makes good work possible. The result? → Sharper messaging. → Better engagement. → More qualified enquiries. → A brand their team can actually rally behind. – If you’re entering new markets it’s worth taking stock of your current brand before it holds you back. I’m opening up a handful of free 30-minute brand audits that will help. You’ll walk away with a scorecard, your top 5 fixes, and a clear 30-day action plan. DM me ‘Audit’ if you want one.

A little look at the character “Flieur” from my recent music video La Dgaîngue. Even though she’s not one of the core band members, Flieur was actually the first character I designed. I liked the idea of having a child lead the viewer into the woods, at first giving it a slightly spooky feel, only to reveal a fun-loving group of creatures just enjoying themselves. The song’s all about belonging, and we wanted to flip those old cautionary tales that used to scare kids into behaving (“watch out for La Vioaje at night, or they’ll take you away to their cave and eat you!”). Instead, we reimagined them as a bunch of friends and misfits spreading a positive message of belonging. #3DArt #3DAnimation #CharacterDesign #Blender3D #3DModelling #3DCharacter #DigitalArt #CGI #AnimationArt #IndieAnimation #AnimatedMusicVideo #LookDev #VisualDevelopment #ArtOfAnimation #CharacterArtist #StylizedCharacter #Render #FolkloreArt #LaDgaingue #JerseyMyths

One of the most useful tools for my recent music video for @la_dgaingue was @autodesk Flow. As a man who is not known for my musical or dancing ability, I wasn't going to be the subject of my motion reference as I usually am. Luckily, I have talented mates! The difference with this project though, was that not only did I get motion reference footage, but with Autodesk Flow I could bring in motion capture data straight into Blender from a single-angle video file sent to me from someone living 200 miles away! This gave me a solid foundation for my character animation work in no time. Because I’d already done all the rough camera blocking, I could focus just on the parts of the character that appeared in frame, no need for endless foot-targeting when the feet weren’t even visible. Huge thanks to @lauraelizabeth_cooper for not only performing for me, but also choreographing the entirety of Fai's performance across the video. #3DAnimation #CharacterAnimation #MotionCapture #Blender3D #AutodeskFlow #AnimationPipeline #RemoteCollaboration #DigitalProduction