Our Dublin studio took part in this year's Community Games' Arts and Cultural Weekend which took place in Carlow from September 9-10.

This annual event takes place every year in Ireland, inviting children ages 6-16 to compete across a wide variety of categories including art, writing, singing, chess, dancing, and much more. The Community Games aims to encourage kids to get creative and active, learning the values of teamwork and community.

We were delighted to be invited back to the event this year to run two sessions of Intro to Modelmaking for Kids workshops. Our Dublin studio team members—Previz Asset Modeller Nicky Weston, Environment Modelling Supervisor Eoin Kavanagh, Texturing Supervisor Supriya Pendurkar and Senior Environment Modeller Jordi Garcia—participated in the event in the Carlow VISUAL Theatre, running 2D to 3D “Frightened Little Monster’s’’ classes for youngsters which resulted in some spectacular artwork!

The idea behind the class brief was to make a mock-up show about funny young monster's that were scared of everything. Our Brown Bag creatives led the workshops with Supriya acting as the 2D character designer and texture artist for the class-created 3D monster’s, and Jordi leading the monster character modelling, while Eoin and Nicky helped host the classes and made sure everything was running smoothly.

The kids were given a tailored introduction to 3D modelling and then invited to draw their own monsters which would join the gang of our frightened little monsters, with goodie bags for the best drawing, the best texture, the best name, and best design—of course, the standard was so extremely high that everyone won a goodie bag! Check out all the spooktacular monsters for yourself:

Nicky Weston had this to share about Brown Bag’s involvement this year:

“This is the second year we have run our Introduction to 2D to 3D “Frightened Little Monster’s” class. The response was truly overwhelming. To see the young children’s imaginations run wild creating these characters and giving them crazy names with little back stories was phenomenal and exactly what the class was intended for.

I’d like to thank everyone who helped us put this class together, from the organisers of the Community Games to our 9 Story HR team members Katie Connell and Ayesha Vahidy, and our IT Wizard Dick Meaney for making sure we had all our tech and hardware ready going to the event. A huge shout-out also to our amazing artists Jordi Garcia, Supriya Pendurkar and Eoin Kavanagh, and, of course, the talented kids we had the honour of teaching that day!”

—Nicky Weston, Previz Asset Modeller, Brown Bag Films Dublin

Our team were also asked to judge some of the Community Games art competitions, which they found exceedingly difficult to judge given the high quality of entries. The gang were incredibly impressed with all the talent on display and can't wait to see more from this next generation of creatives.

The community games provide a unique opportunity to give back, helping kids to explore creative fields and get inspired. We’re thrilled that Brown Bag Films was able to take part in the event, introducing kids to the wacky world of art and animation!

A huge thank you to the amazing people who organised the 2023 Community Games and to our fantastic team members who hosted the workshops over the weekend.

If you’d like to learn more about the Community Games, click here.