Hot Chocolate Mornings

Michigan is very cold in the mornings, but on the plus side you get to curl up with a mug of hot chocolate and a good book. Which is quite possibly the best feeling on earth! 

Fanboy and Chum Chum

I had the wonderful privilege of meeting the creator of Fanboy and Chum Chum, Eric Robles, during the Savannah Film Festival. I've always liked watching the show for it's animation style, which went back to the classic Loony Tunes, but it was really inspiring to hear about how he got into the animation industry and the path that lead to Fanboy and Chum Chum. He also made me feel validated in watching abundant amounts of the classic Loony Tunes (like I really needed an excuse to anyway). I'd really like to see more CG shows and films take the Loony Tunes approach to movement. I think that it creates a depth and humor to cartoons that has been a little lacking since the discovery of CG. It's awesome that we now have the ability, through CG, to make things look and move realistically. But sometimes that makes us forget that they are still cartoons: pixels on a screen. They don't have to move realistically. We can make them do anything! That's the fun of being a cartoonist! Hopefully I can incorporate that into my own style more and more. 

Update

So I'm now into my winter break. It's nice to relax after the rough quarter, I'm definitely getting refreshed. The Pick-Up Princess e-book is coming along. Due to programming issues, the deadline has been pushed to early this year instead of the end of November. However, I did receive the very first beta test a couple weeks ago and it's looking awesome. Frank Ayars of Ayars Animation (the publisher) has been doing a great job and even included some things that I hadn't thought of (like a few clips of sound and a page jump option). 

In other news, I've picked up some work from a company called The Story Ship. They do educational programs for schools and they've asked me to design, build, and animate a few characters for an upcoming project they're doing. I'm becoming increasingly proud of the designs I'm doing so I'll keep you as updated as I can on the project and when it's released, you all should definitely check it out! 

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Stay tuned! 

Title Page of the Animated E-Book

Because I've neglected the blog for so long, I thought I would treat you all to the start page of "The Pick-Up Princess" animated children's e-book. In the actual app, there will be some limited animation on this, but for now just enjoy the still. And thanks to Paloma Schults for the awesome title and fonts!

An Even Later Update

Greetings to those existing out there in the ether! You may have noticed that I have not updated in a while. I'm deeply sorry for this. Life as well as several things relating to my animated children's e-book, "The Pick-Up Princess", have been occupying my time.

So here's what you missed:

Due to unforeseen financial issues, Andrews UK and Prairie Muse Press were unable to fulfill their contract with me. However, Ayars Animation has stepped in and taken over the project. Currently, the book is going through the programming stage.

The first commercial for "The Pick-Up Princess" has been finalized and is ready for launch upon completion of programming, which should be done in the next month or so. Everything relating to the book has been very exciting and it has been a great distraction from the ups and downs of life.

Life has been...life. This year I have had to face the death of a good friend of mine. I've slowly found a new normal, but being so far from home during that event was a challenge. My thoughts and prayers are continually with her friends and family.

But like I mentioned, life has it's ups and downs. I've been blessed with opportunities and it's my hope to use my talents to take advantage of all those opportunities despite the curve balls life throws from time to time. More on this later as I PROMISE to update more frequently.

Debbie

A Very Late Princess Update

As we're heading into the final turn, things have really picked up and I'm afraid I have neglected my Princess Update Duty! However, today holds some exciting news!

My friend Paloma is doing all the lettering for The Pick-up Princess and just got 10 pages done. In about 3 hours. Yes. She is a goddess. A goddess of lettering. Anyway this means that 10 pages are officially ready for publication! I've sent some things off to my editor to see if we're good to go. As long as the last few scenes get done this week, we should be in business in no time! :D It's hard to contain my excitement!

Pictures taken from Google, please don't hurt me for using them... 

Princess Update

8 scenes down and 6 to go! The team is really starting to cruise through coloring. On top of working on the book, I did some experimenting with Toon Boom puppets. It's certainly different from Flash, but not in a bad way. Working with the new software was a lot easier and more intuitive than I expected. I'm definitely going to have to play around with it a bit more to see what I can accomplish with it.