Welcome to Cloth Cat, a skilled and experienced animation and games studio with expertise in the development, design and technical execution of content for broadcast series, commercials, games and web.

Founded in 2012, Cloth Cat is now one of the leading animation and games companies in the UK and we’re based in the heart of Cardiff, the historic capital city of Wales. We have over 100 hours of content under our belts and we are always looking for new and exciting projects to bring to life. Our animation work includes Luo Bao Bei (International Emmy nomination 2019), Shane the Chef, Olobob Top, The Rubbish World of Dave Spud, Toot the Tiny Tugboat and the award-winning Ethel & Ernest which was released in cinemas in 2016.

Our games include Byd Cyw, Eloise Hotel, Mabinogi-Ogi and Toot’s Race, and we’ve won a number of BAFTA awards for our work on games for Toot the Tiny Tugboat and Boj. We’ve collaborated on multiple projects with international partners and are one of the few studios able to handle a series from development all the way to platform delivery. We take a great pride in our creative ideas and our technical wizardry, bringing both together to provide unique solutions for our clients and making the best animation we possibly can.

Cloth Cat is a proud supporter of the animation community and regularly contributes to Animation UK, The Children’s Media Foundation, PACT, ScreenSkills, and a large number of local and national universities. We also sponsor the local Cardiff Animation Nights and were major contributors to the Cardiff Animation Festival, which celebrated its return in 2018. Cardiff has a notable history of animation production and Cloth Cat are delighted to continue this legacy for both Wales and the UK.

Events —

We sponsor the bi-monthly Cardiff Animation Nights screening and networking events, Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival, and the British Animation Awards.

Education —

With renowned animation courses being run at several local universities we are actively involved with reviewing the curriculum and striving to further strengthen a sustainable local animation industry.

Training —

We have also run a number of successful internal and external training courses, upskilling our staff and broadening and enhancing the skills of the UK animation community.

Jon Rennie – Managing Director

Jon started his career in games, then filmmaking and visual effects, before settling on the animation industry and forming Cloth Cat in 2012. Over the past 10 years, the company has continued to develop new games and series ideas, and was the recipient of an Epic Megagrant in 2021. Projects include the Emmy-nominated Luo Bao Bei, Shane the Chef, The Rubbish World of Dave Spud, Olobob Top, Ethel & Ernest, Boj, Grandpa in my Pocket and Disney’s Tales of Friendship with Winnie the Pooh. Based in Cardiff and, when he isn’t working, he’s building Lego, he’s watching movies, and travelling the world.

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Ben Cawthorne – Creative Producer

Ben leads the games development team at Cloth Cat. Before this he worked for a decade in the animation industry covering many areas of content production, with predominant focus on IP development, design, technique, technology and workflow. He’s overseen over 40 projects, including Ethel & Ernest, Boj, Rastamouse, The Lingo Show, Iconicles and Fun with Claude. With a strong technical understanding, creative project management skills and experience in developing the digital content strategy for IP, he explores cross-platform opportunities for projects and their ongoing support. When he isn’t launching 3 apps in one month, he is spending quality time looking after his kids… tamagotchis.

Julia Coles – Head of Production

Julia oversees the organisation of our larger animation projects. She graduated from the University of South Wales with a degree in Music Production and first started as a production assistant at Dinamo Productions on Rastamouse. Since starting with Cloth Cat, she has been Production Coordinator and Production Manager on Boj, Toot the Tiny Tugboat, Luo Bao Bei, and Dave Spud among many others. She is a keen musician and is the lead singer in the swing band Brother Ray. She has also been a voice actor on Luo Bao Bei!

Shane Skuse – Head of Interactive Development and Senior Developer

Shane has a long track record of programming and delivering development projects with a focus on games and their mechanics. He began as an animator and rigger on series such as Cyw, Fun with Claude, Iconicles, Abadas and Boj. Since 2013, he has transitioned to games and has delivered over 30 projects across a range of platforms and devices. Projects include Ethel & Ernest, Byd Cyw, Eloise and Toot the Tiny Tugboat, using Unity and HTML5. Being a father keeps Shane very busy, but whatever free time he can spare you can find him doing D.I.Y projects.

Tom Lucas – Head of Animation Development

Tom Lucas works with clients from the first creative talks through design/concept, animation tests, storyboarding and animatics and prepping assets ready for the larger team to work their magic! He began his career at Dinamo Productions working on Iconicles, Lingo Show and Wildernuts, and also at Aardman working in their advert department. He joined Cloth Cat in 2012 and has been instrumental on a number of productions, including Art Director on Luo Bao Bei and director on Rainbow Stories, Helbling: Space, Helbling: Whatsit, and Dewin & Doti. Away from the studio, he can usually be found spending time with his son, playing games, going on long walks all around Cardiff or occasionally working on his own short film ideas!

Kim McCarthy – Senior CG Artist

Kim has a Foundation Diploma in Fine Art and Illustration and Masters in Computer Animation, and her first professional work was doing VFX for BBC series The Zoo. She joined Cloth Cat to work on Shane the Chef and modelled all of the characters and creatures, as well as hundred of props. Since then she has become part of the in house team doing a wide variety of animation and games projects, including Helbling: Secret Spring, Byd Cyw and Produce Produce. When Kim isn’t killing it at her job, you can find her gardening with her cat or at the beach!

Josh Doyle – Lead Technical Artist

Josh is responsible for CG rigging and research and development into our Blender and Unreal pipeline. Josh began his career as a Junior Animator at Pixel Hero Games, working on Warhammer 40,000 game Eisenhorn: XENOS. He then worked as an animator on Olobob Top and Jen a Jim PopDim and then as a CG rigger and layout artist on Shane the Chef. Since he was taken on full time at Cloth Cat, he’s worked on a number of TV pilots, games and other animated media while expanding his knowledge of Blender. Outside of work, he enjoys long walks along the beaches of South Wales with his husband and fur-baby Maui.