TomSka

Early life and education

As a child, Ridgewell began making short films using his parents' video camera. Not long after YouTube was established, Ridgewell created CakeBomb, a website which he posted his video creations, including his friend Edd Gould's Eddsworld, and his viral animated video series asdfmovie. Ridgewell graduated from the University of Lincoln, and while there created a series of unofficial "advertisements" for the university which received millions of views.

He was raised a Jehovah's Witness, but no longer practices this faith. Despite this, he has expressed a belief in a god.

YouTube career

A professional YouTuber, Ridgewell earns money from revenue from his videos on the website. He also has made short films for BBC and Comedy Central. He has been discussed and interviewed in relation to this, especially when the medium of online video was in its infancy. He has also appeared as a guest on the BBC's The One Show, and has appeared as a radio and TV guest internationally.

In 2008, Ridgewell released the first installment of asdfmovie, an animated sketch comedy series featuring very short clips of minimally-detailed characters in surreal and occasionally darkly humorous situations. There have been ten episodes as of April 2017, as well as two "deleted scene" videos, a promotional video with Marmite, and three music videos; "I Like Trains", "Mine Turtle", and "Everybody Do The Flop". The song "Beep Beep I'm a Sheep" by Canadian musician Todd "LilDeuceDeuce" Bryanton with vocals by Ridgewell and Gabriel "BlackGryph0n" Brown, released alongside asdfmovie10, will be featured in the Just Dance 2018 video game, scheduled for release in October 2017.

In 2012, Ridgewell founded a media production company, TurboPunch Ltd., located in London. Ridgewell currently works there alongside co-writer Eddie Bowley and video editor Elliot Gough.

In 2012, he took charge of the production of Eddsworld after the show's original creator and his friend, Edd Gould, died of leukemia. He left the series in 2016, handing the show over to Edd's family. In 2013, Ridgewell was featured in YouTube's first "Comedy Week". He was featured on the cover of Wired UK in February 2013 as part of a feature titled "How YouTube Reinvented the Entertainment Business" and was selected by YouTube as a guest host for its Geek Week series in August. The BBC announced that Ridgewell will be appearing as a guest presenter on the Dan and Phil show from September 2014 on BBC Radio 1.

In January 2015, Ridgewell launched a new webtoon, Crash Zoom, on his TomSka channel. It is animated by Ben "Wonchop" Smallman, who also animated some of the asdfmovie episodes. It features three young characters Lucy, Ben, and Kate, in their various surreal exploits.

DarkSquidge

DarkSquidge is the name of Ridgewell's secondary channel on YouTube. As of December 2016, the channel has almost 700,000 subscribers and more than 84 million views. The content that Ridgewell uploads on this channel differs greatly from that of his main channel. While his main channel consists of sketch comedy and animations, DarkSquidge shows behind the scenes footage of TomSka related projects and videos. Ridgewell also engages in social commentary on this platform, covering a range of topics such as mental health, sexual health and body positivity. Vlogging is also a part of this channel. The YouTuber uploads weekly vlogs to the channel dubbed as "Last Week". This channel was created in October 2007.

Other projects

In 2014, Ridgewell, in collaboration with video game developer Pixel Spill Studios, created the game KatataK, a side-scrolling shoot 'em up for iOS and Android devices.

In 2015, Ridgewell worked with animator Matt Ley to create Art is Dead: the asdf book, a comic book based on and featuring adapted sketches from his asdfmovie series.

In 2016, TomSka filmed several sketches with the BBC in a trial for a potential sketch show on BBC Three. These sketches were not picked up by the BBC, however, and he later posted the clips on his own YouTube channel.

Books