Who We Are
Founded in 2012, Cloth Cat is an award winning animation studio, nestled in the heart of Cardiff, UK.
With over a hundred hours of animated works under our belt, we’ve certainly learnt a thing or two about delivering great results. We are uniquely experienced in all areas of animation production, from development all the way through to platform delivery. We’re experts in international collaboration and we’re also a lot of fun to work with!
We take great pride in our versatile creative approach and in our technical wizardry, which enables us to provide innovative solutions for our clients. Together with our sister studio Cloth Cat Games, we can offer a bespoke package of in-house games development support alongside our animation services. We are always looking for new and exciting projects to bring to life. To find out more, check out our Services page!
Our Studio
We believe in providing a positive and productive work environment where our talented team can really flourish. We ensure that every member of the team has a valued voice in how things are done here at Cloth Cat. We make sure to invest time into training and R&D, both for personal development purposes and for the benefit of our in-house and collaborative projects.
Having a healthy work-life balance is important; we are anti-crunch, offer flexibility around core hours and operate a hybrid work environment where staff can choose to work in-studio, at home or a combination of the two. We regularly attend industry events, host in-person and virtual get-togethers, game nights and have fun times at our annual summer and winter gatherings!
We are all about building an inclusive, collaborative and welcoming culture at Cloth Cat. If you’d like to be part of it, make sure to subscribe to our socials and sign up for the Cloth Cat Newsletter to hear about any future job opportunities.
The Team
Jon Rennie
Managing Director
Biography
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.
Ben Cawthorne
Creative Producer
Biography
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.
Shane Skuse
Head of Interactive Development
Biography
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
Biography
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 Artist
Biography
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 Tech Artist
Biography
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.
Outreach
EVENTS
We support the Children’s Media Conference, Cardiff Animation Nights and the annual Cardiff Animation Festival. We also sponsor Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival and attend animation festivals all around the world.
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
We participate in Careers Fairs across South Wales and collaborate with universities to support graduates by providing workshops and live briefs. For more information on Professional Training please visit our Academy page.
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
We understand the importance of innovation. Most recently, in collaboration with Good Gate Media and with support from Media Cymru, we’ve been investigating Sentiment Analysis and how it can effect character performance.
Partners
Get in touch!
We aim to respond to all relevant general enquiries as soon as we can.
If you are applying for a specific job please apply directly through our Careers page. If you’re getting in touch in order to share your skills/portfolio, you can do so through our Speculative Enquiry form.
We are currently unable to offer work experience or placements.
Please be advised that we are not currently accepting unsolicited ideas or pitches (for example, pitch documents, scripts or story ideas). For legal reasons, we will not open or read any such submissions and any emails that appear to be unsolicited pitches will be deleted and will not be read.
Please note: We may share your email within Cloth Cat to ensure it reaches the most relevant party to reply. Your Personal Data is very important to Cloth Cat and the information you supply will be collected and processed in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and Cloth Cat’s Privacy Notice. We will hold your email for 4 years, unless you ask us to delete it earlier.