Ashley Thorpe, a talented individual, was born in Inverness in 1972 and spent his early years in Devon. After studying Fine Art and Film in Canterbury, he relocated to Manchester, where he worked for the BBC, handling equipment dispatch and creating freelance graphics for productions such as the "Fortean Times" inspired "Weird Almanac" in 2002, under the guidance of producer Gerard Barry.
As his career progressed, Ashley moved to London, where he pursued illustration, taking on various commissions for Headpress and Critical Vision Publishing, as well as working on freelance TV graphic projects, including Derren Brown's "Trick of the Mind," which featured exterior graphics on the Arcade machine for the controversial "Zombie Arcade game" episode in 2005.
Ashley's creative journey took a brief detour to Athens, Greece, where he worked as a comic artist, before returning to his roots in 2004 and dedicating himself to creating a series of animated shorts, drawing inspiration from neglected aspects of English mythology.
To date, Ashley has produced four "Penny Dreadful" animations: "The Vampire" in 2002, featuring a cameo by Derren Brown; "Scarecrow" in 2008, which won the Project Green-Light Bursary from Devon County Council in association with Exeter Phoenix; "The Screaming Skull" in 2008, which won the Digital Media Bursary from Exeter City Council in association with "Animated Exeter" and was subsequently nominated for Best UK Short Film at Raindance in 2009; and "The Hairy Hands" in 2010, featuring voice acting by Doug Bradley.
Ashley's directorial endeavors have earned him recognition, including the "Visionary Award" at the Buried Alive Film Festival in Atlanta in November 2010. He is currently working on another short, "Borley Rectory," and his first feature, the highly anticipated "Spring Heel Jack."
In 2010, Ashley's reputation as an animator led to an invitation to write for horror periodical "Fangoria Magazine," and he has since contributed numerous interviews, articles, and cover art, often with a Brit-Horror theme. Additionally, Ashley made his radio debut in 2010 with "The Demon Huntsman," a horror radio drama written for Glass Eye Pix's "Tales From Beyond the Pale" series.
