MooBeard: The Cow Pirate

It’s time for the OAQ: Once-asked questions.

Q: “I hear George Takai sounds a lot like Dark blade. Is that true?”

A: While pitching the storyboard, I’ve been using a George Takai (Sulu) impression for MooBeard’s nemesis, Dark Blade of Fire. While a Takai impression would suit the character fine, that’s not necessarily what I need. The actor I currently have in mind for Dark Blade has a deep, interesting voice like that, but doesn’t sound like George.

Q: “How much of the storyboard is actually finished in a day’s work?”

A: I’ve been getting about 10 pages drawn per day. (1 page has 3 panels) I actually finished drawing it yesterday and spent all yesterday afternoon and all day today writing direction and camera notes all over it, per a long meeting I had with Jeff DeGrandis, my (awesome) director.

Q: What happens from the minute you enter the building ’til the time [Read more…]

This week’s fan art (for a show that doesn’t exist yet) is by Claire “Rocketgal” Duffy from Ireland!

For those keeping track, that’s one from Argentina and one from Ireland so far. Will MooBeard find love in his native land? Stay tuned, true believers!

Here’s a peek at what I’m doing right now. I’m currently redrawing my pitch storyboard to improve the drawings, and camera angles, as well as to spell out some of the acting more. The angle is roughly the same on this one, but Darkblade now gets three poses to get through this line rather than just one.

Just an image today, folks. Drawn and inked by me, color and background by Huck.

I had to come up with a tagline today summing up the cartoon in two sentences.

“MooBeard: The Cow Pirate- MooBeard and Sailor Bird search for the treasure of Hookamookapookalapp. Will their greatest obstacle be Dark Blade the ninja ducky, or the poorly-drawn map?”

I’m spending most of my time right now redrawing my storyboard, trying to improve shots and add more acting and stronger artwork. Since that’s what’s happening on a daily basis now, I’m not entirely sure what to blog about. What do you folks want to hear about? If there’s a subject you’d like me to talk about, now’s a great time to suggest it!

Dood. That right there is the first ever drawing of MooBeard! It’s from March, 2003. My computer had broken, so I was spending all my usual net surfing time trying to come up with new characters. I was thinking about a pirate-crew drawing Samy had done, realized I hadn’t done anything with that genre yet, and tried to come up with something. Somehow, I don’t think I had planned MooBeard to be the protagonist yet. In case you can’t make out my scrawled words up there, it says “Treasure Plummet”. N’heh.

Also, my good friend Jay Smith has informed me that I’ve reduced his number of degrees of seperation from Kevin Bacon:
“Kevin Bacon was in “A Few Good Men” with Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise was in “War of the Worlds” directed by Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg produced “Toonsylvania” directed by Jeff DeGrandis

Jeff DeGrandis is directing “MooBeard” created by TV’s Kyle A Carrozza

Kyle Carrozza [Read more…]

I have an unusually large amount of MooBeard fan art, (considering I haven’t even made this thing yet), so I thought I’d make it a weekly blog feature to show some of it off!

This week’s is a brand new drawing of Sailor Bird, MooBeard’s co-star by Samy Erdini from Argentina! Samy has been an online friend of mine for roughly five years now. She’s always been a, cheerful, enthusiastic supporter of me and my work, and as you can see, she’s very talented!

Yesterday we had a meeting about voices. It brought up interesting questions that they never told you about when you were in school, such as “How old should your ninja ducky sound”? Sometime soon, a number of actors (including myself) will be trying out for the various roles in the cartoon. Our three main characters and roughly six incidental voices will all need to have voices assigned, and I get to choose who to use! Dare I say…. I shall. BOOYAH! For those of you who are just breaking into the cartoon business or merely considering it, be sure to check the credits or IMDB from time to time when you hear a cartoon voice you like. You might need to know later!

By the way, I’ll be at ComicCon on Saturday and Sunday. I won’t be at a particular panel or anything, I’m just there to enjoy it. So, if [Read more…]

While I’m serving as the creator/producer/storyboard artist/character designer/whatever of the MooBeard short, I won’t be the director. “But Kyle? Why?”, you might ask. After I called security, I would tell you that this is my first real work in television animation, save for some freelance storyboard revisions. While I’ve worked on CD roms and done some flash cartoons for my own amusement, I have no idea how to direct a real television cartoon.

Thankfully, I’ve been able to enlist the help of Jeff DeGrandis! He was my first choice for director, and through some miracle, despite how busy he is, he’s doing it! Jeff has an impressive wrap sheet as it is, but the reason I wanted to enlist his help is because he directed my favorite TV cartoon ever, “The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show”. That show achieved something very similar to what I want to do with MooBeard (particularly in [Read more…]

Hi, folks! Kyle Carrozza here, better known as “TV’s Kyle” to some of you. I just got started on the MooBeard short this monday. This is my first time working at a major animation studio, so it’s a thrill to even be here, but on top of that, I’m drawing my own stuff. All day. And they’re paying me to do it. I’m not entirely sure it’s truly sunk in yet. Perhaps after another week where I don’t have to process medical records, my brain will start comprehending that this isn’t just a vacation.

Anyhoo, I’ll keep this short since this is only the first entry. I can tell ya that the image I posted here are paintings that Arica Houy, a brilliant CalArts student and a good friend of mine did over drawings I did.

Booyah!
-Kyle