Here at Glassworks HQ, there are a lot of highlights that stand out from 2014. We were involved in some great work, won a hatful of awards and welcomed some super talented new faces.

We were also chuffed to be involved in the rebirth of Tetley’s advertising. This bastion of advertising folklore has been rebooted by agency Creature and it’s been a privilege and a lot of fun to be invited along for the ride.

Firstly, launching 2014 with a bang, our old friends Gaffer, Sydney and Tina brokered peace with invading aliens. And now, neatly bookending the year, we collaborated again with the team at Creature, throwing our tea-loving heroes into medieval warfare, directed by ACNE’s Thomas Skoging.

Full of the charm and comedy we know so well, the exciting thing for our team of animators was getting to know these characters in a whole new world.

Their creation requires a meticulous process that brings good old-fashioned hand drawing into the mix. Just like the way these characters come between warring factions, so they exist somewhere between the two worlds of 2D and 3D.

The characters are actually created in CG with the animation rendered in two different ways. The first lights them traditionally while the second renders a particular shader that makes them more cartoon like. Because these passes are almost too perfect and CG, the real work then begins.

To give them their inimitable hand drawn, 2D cartoon style, each frame of each render is then hand traced. It’s a process of loving craft and finesse that can’t be cheated and the result adds so much to the character of our heroic tea chums.