From the June/July issue of Animation Magazine, profiles on Eric and Pen. Separated at birth?

Here are a few pieces of production art of the amusement park attraction that gives the episode “Manarctica the Ride” its title. Eric’s concept is below, followed by Caesar’s Ride Station, Ext. Wide Shot, and Ext. Coaster Turn. The art above is by designed by Caesar and colored by Chad. As usual, click through for different sizes on Flickr.

– Eric

Dear Pen,

I love your Adventure Time cartoon, and I can’t wait until they become full episodes on Cartoon Network. Of course I’ll probably have to wait longer than that since I can’t get cartoon network up here in Canada so I miss all my favorite shows, like Adventure Time and the Misadventure of Flapjack (since they pulled it off the air from Teletoon) *shakes fist*.
But I love the artwork from your show (and others such as the bravest warriors) and I often frequent the frederator blog just to keep up. I also love Natasha Allegri’s work too, ever since I found her webcomics a few years ago, so please tell her she’s wonderful.
Anyways besides wasting your time with my fandom, I wanted to send a few pictures your way of a cosplay me and my boyfriend did of Pen and Princess Bubblegum at Anime Evolution (June 12-14, Vancouver BC Canada @ The vancouver Convention Center). They aren’t the greatest pictures as we are a) hideous creatures b) due to a wardrobe malfunction my wig was very unruly and c) awkward smiles.
But everyone who saw us were very excited, so just know you have many fans in Canada who love your work.

Thank you and I hope you enjoy.

Callielo Brands

Ps. Rainacorns make awesome mustaches

Dan Meth D&D Sample 1 from fredseibert on Vimeo.

As we’ve been organizing and putting together the film that we created at Wednesday’s Drinking & Drawing, I’m coming across loads of hysterical drawings. Some are so silly they just make me laugh out loud. I don’t want to spoil the best parts, but I thought you guys might like some sneak peeks of clips made by some of the animators that joined us at the event. First up, Drinking & Drawing creator, Dan Meth. Dan drew twice for us, so this is only one of two great clips. Check it out!
- Carrie

Miriam Nagi introduced Frederator to a sweet story (and the world’s cutest cloud) in her short “Krishna’s Garden”. Here she tells us about the film and the artists that shaped her unique style.

Channel Frederator: Who or what has influenced your style the most?

Miriam Nagi: I am mostly influenced by old Indian Mughal paintings and Persian miniatures as well as the painting techniques of the impressionists such as Monet and Renoir. Also by artists like Poly Bernatene, Petra Stefankova, Sanjay Patel,and Joey Chou.

CF: I saw on your blog that you had a different idea for your thesis - what made you decide to go with “Krishna’s Garden”?

MN: I decided to go with “Krishna’s Garden” because I wanted to do something cute and simple with an interesting style. I learned about some Hindu Gods and their tales in a class I took in school, and I thought they were pretty cool so I did a little research on them. I saw this one painting of Krishna playing his flute under these dark rain clouds and it came to me. I wanted Krishna and a rain cloud to be friends. I knew I’d enjoy working on this and that is what made me go for it.

CF: Any other tales you would like to animate?

MN: Yeah, I think it would be fun to continue along the lines of Krishna, exploring other Indian stories. I’d like to create children’s stories using ideas and or characters from Indian and Persian tales such as The Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gita. They are all so full of interesting imagery and tell powerful messages. I’d like to explore some of these ideas with my own work.

CF: You just graduated from Ringling - any big plans now that you’re out of school?

MN: Mostly looking for a job for now, spending time with my family, and relaxing. Other than that I’ll be creating my own little works of art, and other things I’ve been wanting to work on.

Thanks for the interview, Miriam, and good luck!

You can watch “Krishna’s Garden” right here on Channel Frederator!

-Bailee DesRocher

Animator Daniel Lundquist’s film “Boris” has be shown at film festivals all over the globe, including Annecy 2009 and the World Wide Short Film Festival. Here he he tells us a little about the boy who would grow up to drum with everything he’s got.

Channel Frederator: Where did you study animation?

Daniel Lundquist: I studied animation at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design from 2003 to 2007.

CF: What has influenced your style the most?

DL: I have been influenced by many animators, probably the most by Max Fleischer. But I also love Disney and Pixar. My favorite feature film of all time is “The Triplets of Belleville“.

CF: What gave you the idea for “Boris”?

DL: “Boris” started as a story that I wanted to tell of a man who drummed with his head because he had no arms. The rest of the story formed around that.

CF: Any projects coming up that you can tell us about?

DL: I am presently working on a 10min animated short called “Filled in Blank”. I hope to have it finished by 2012 if not before. Its the story of one man who looks back on his life to try and understand what his life was all about.

CF: Object you can’t live without or habit you refuse to give up?

DL: I don’t like getting more than 6 hours of sleep in a night.

Thanks for the interview, Daniel!

You can watch “Boris” right here on Channel Frederator!

-Bailee DesRocher

I’m still recovering from the night of mayhem that was our latest New York City Drinking & Drawing event. It was truly a blast. We had such a great turn out and people really seemed to have fun. I had such a great time organizing it too!

We had loads going on at the Binkini Zombie Drinking & Drawing . Not only were we doing rounds at the drawing tables, but we also had paper and crayons, giant draw-on banners and draw-on Wubbzy figurines. I know, I know! It’s all so exciting! Don’t worry. I’m going to have lots of pictures to share with you guys, so you won’t miss out on the fun.

We’re cranking away at getting the final picture together, and of course, you’ll see it here first. Count on seeing it mid-week next week, but I’m also trying to get some previews together this weekend. Also check into www.DrinkingAndDrawing.org for oodles of pictures.

Anyway, recovered or not, there are a few people that should be acknowledged for helping make the night such a success:

• Kevin Karp for help setting up and tirelessly distributing postcards to promote the event.
• Zoraida Paulino-Nin for helping set up
• Andres Palmiter for his photographic skills
• Jared Roessler for his photographic skills and helping clean up after the event
• M1-5 for being such a great host
• Elliot Cowan for the awesome poster
• Our wonderful interns Kelsey Field and George DeCherney who were at our beck and call all night
• And of course Fred Seibert for giving us the resources to hold such a fun event

And lastly, I have to thank everyone who showed up! You guys are the ones that make the event so much fun!

Check back for more photos, videos and fun stuff.

- Carrie

The “King of Pop” done in Feb. 2003 by yours truly. R.I.P. Michael Jackson. 

Photo of zombie host Justin Johnson
(with his brains hanging out) by Geekanerd

Carrie’s going to give her complete thanks list, but I wanted to add my quick thank you’s for last night’s fab D+D/NY event. Life being life, we haven’t gotten together since April 08, and we were talking about the general down-ness of animation in New York and decided, busy or not, we needed to pop come energy into the cartoon culture around here. A great time was had by all, as you’ll see from the photos already starting to post over at the tumblr and the 1000 animation drawings that were done during the evening. We’ll have the cartoon (D+D #7, I believe) ready to rock soon too.

Thank you, as always, to our indefatigable producer Carrie Miller. Since she picked up the ball from Dan after D+D #1, it’s been Carrie who’s shouldered the burden not just for our home grown events, but for the franchise operations from Portland to Boston.

Kevin Karp is our summer intern and has been hovering around our Frederator family for years. He quietly, diligently, completely did whatever was asked of him to pull all the details together for you all, and the event came together because of it.

Elliot. Elliot. Elliot. Elliot Cowan, and his generous spirit to his adopted NY animators’ community is what inspired us to get this event going. His enthusiam, first and foremost, but his awesome poster and promotion to the ASIFA-East-ers got the word out in style and kicked us into high gear.

Justin Johnson, the new Channel Frederator host, stepped out from in front of the camera and hosted you rowdy hooligans so we had at least of semblance of order.

The folks at M1-5 Bar/Lounge, as usual, provided us with all the hospitality hooligans really need.

And not to be neglected –Carrie can fill in the details, George deCherney from tumblr, stepped up at the event and lent any of his hands needed to help Carrie with whatever had to be done. Thanks guy!

Jarad, Andres, Marco, and all the photographers, we’re looking forward to seeing how foolish we looked.

And, most of all, Dan Meth came up with the idea that sparked the whole shebang. We were glad you could come by and revel in your good work.

Everyone of you, and more, were fantastic. Thank you so much for all the help. Hope you can come with us to Los Angeles in the fall.

–Fred

Jayne Vidheecharoen is a top-notch animator by nature and by trade. She recently animated the music video for “When Life Gives Me Lemons I Make Lemonade” by UK band, The Boy Least Likely To.

Channel Frederator: Where did you study animation?

Jayne Vidheecharoen: I’ve been doing stop motion and flip-book animation for fun since I was little and always loved drawing and animation. But I couldn’t imagine having to draw the same things over and over again all day long.

So I went to the University of Washington for Visual Communication Design. About halfway through school I discovered motion design, which seemed like a good hybrid of design, illustration, and animation. After graduating I got a job at Digital Kitchen where I’ve been able to learn the most about animation from coworkers. I actually got to work on the Lemonade video at DK as a personal project, which was great. I don’t think it would have turned out nearly as nice without DK’s support.

Check out Jayne’s sweet storyboard - 0320_lemon_storyboard_sm.pdf

CF: What has influenced your style the most?

JV: I’m pretty sure the hours and hours of PBS, MTV, and Nickelodeon I watched growing up is permanently embedded into my creative subconscious. And playing Yoshi’s Island and Parappa the Rapper. And reading Calvin & Hobbes (I guess TV, video games, and comics do have a lasting effect on kids after all). I’m also constantly being inspired by the endless supply of great illustrators featured on Drawn and other great illustration blogs.

CF: Can you tell us a little about The Boy Least Likely To?

JV: The Boy Least Likely To is a delightful English indie pop band made up of Jof Owen and Pete Hobbs. Jof’s brother draws the artwork for them (and he designed the lemonade label for the bottle at the end of the video). I’ve never met the boys in person but they seem like very nice fellows. They also happen to be one of my favorite bands so I was super excited to make a video for them. On the lemonade label at the end of the video there’s a little tag line (that’s hard to read) that says “100% sugar with a touch of bitterness” which I think is the perfect way to describe their music.

CF: What gave you idea for this music video?

JV: The boys came to me with the song and a bunch of photos they had shot of their little red bird in a couple different poses, which is featured on the album cover and all the videos. They also mentioned they “kind of wanted lemons in it too, just because there’s lemons in the song.” So I knew I only had this library of bird poses to work with and I needed lemons, but aside from that it was pretty open.

In the bird’s picture folder there were also lots of process photos of the boys crafting the bird and his little green tank (featured on the album cover) with all sorts of random supplies. They were really charming so visually I knew I wanted to keep it pretty DIY, fun, and simple (since it had a pretty short timeline and small budget).

Story wise I just started by listening to the song a lot. Jof’s lyrics are full of all sorts of great imagery and the video is pretty much what I see in my head when I hear the song. The lyrics are overwhelmingly sweet for the most part but there’s also this dark part of the song, so I tried to come up with ways something so seemingly sweet could be actually be a bit dark. Cutting up lemon baddies into lemonade and selling it just seemed like the obvious way to go.

CF: What’s next for you?

JV: I keep asking myself that too! I have an on going personal project called Big Word Bird where I make an animation about some of my favorite words, so hopefully I’ll get to make more of those. I also have an on going journal comic now called Pinwheels and Papercuts (after doing them for about 5 years I finally decided last week I should give it some sort of name). I’m also trying to learn some basic electronics and toying with the idea of designing a simple sidescrolling video game. I’ve also been thinking about grad school but I’m still not sure yet. So I’m not really sure what’s next, but you can always check my site for updates!

Will do! Thanks for the interview, Jayne!

You can check out “When Life Gives Me Lemons, I Make Lemonade” right here on Channel Frederator!

-Bailee DesRocher