The Fairly Odd-Blog

Michael Dougherty

It’s been a while since our last blog interview with a Fairly OddParents crew-member, but this sit-down with character designer Michael Dougherty will hopefully show it’ll have been worth the wait.

Frederator: Where did you grow up?

Michael: I grew up in Chula Vista, CA, a suburb of San Diego, which is about nine miles north of the Mexico border and nine miles south of downtown. My family lived in the predominantly Hispanic, blue collar neighborhood of Otay where one could, at any hour of the day, hear chickens clucking, Mariachi music playing, and church bells ringing down the street. My dad was a reservist with the USAF working at a local air base in non-destructive metals testing, and my mom was an elementary school teacher and homemaker. I am the sixth of eight kids. I have seven siblings: four brothers and three sisters. Growing up in a big family was a blast because we kids kept each other entertained; there were always enough siblings for a full musical band, a two-team baseball game or a cast for a homemade movie. I was fortunate to grow up in a very artistic, creative, musical family, and that definitely opened up doors for me to one day be an artist for a living.

Frederator: When and what made you realize you wanted to go into cartoons?

Michael: I’m not the first in my family to work in the animation industry. My paternal grandmother, Dorothy Dougherty, inked animation cels for Warner Bros propaganda cartoons during WWII. I’ve been drawing cartoons since I was ten years old when I bought my first issue of MAD Magazine which was, coincidentally, their 300th issue. I was already familiar with the MAD artists from my older brother’s stack of 1980s MAD back issues. I loved the drawings of Mort Drucker, Angelo Torres, Jack Davis, Al Jaffee, Antonio Prohias, and Paul Coker. I copied their drawing styles (especially Drucker’s) in order to create my own comic strips and caricatures, which I have stowed away for posterity. That was my first education in art and that’s what first inspired me to be a cartoonist for a living. Cartoonist Al Hirschfeld was a favorite of mine during my teenage years. I never liked sports, science, or math when I was a kid, but I loved art, cartoons, and movies. Art was the only subject in which it was easy for me to get an “A” and I enjoyed doing art homework, so I stuck with it. I was never and still am not much of an animation geek. In retrospect, I didn’t grow up during any of the hallmark moments in TV animation. If I had been born twenty years sooner than I was, I would have grown up with the Flintstones, the classic Chuck Jones ‘toons, and Hanna-Barbera shows. As an ‘80s child, I watched mostly mediocre Saturday morning cartoons like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Inspector Gadget, and G.I. Joe. It wasn’t until I studied life drawing at Art Center that I gained a better appreciation for rough animation, character design, and animation art, in general. That’s when I decided to be an animation artist.

Frederator: So Art Center was your animation education?

Michael: After I graduated high school, I spent a few years at Southwestern College (a community college in San Diego) drifting from majoring in photography to graphic design to fine art. My indecisiveness turned out to be very beneficial, because it afforded me the opportunity to explore different career paths and develop some fundamental art and design skills. While there, I was very fortunate to do a three-month-long study abroad in Florence, Italy, which was very enlightening. Mr. David Quattrociocchi, a graphic design instructor at Southwestern College, encouraged me to move away from San Diego and continue my education in either San Francisco, New York, or Los Angeles. In the fall of ‘03, I applied to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, and was accepted into the illustration department. There, I took a series of extremely helpful life drawing classes from animation artist Mike Mattesi (renowned for his “Force” drawing books, now an art director at Leap Frog). Mike’s “Force” classes were a tremendous breakthrough for me and I attribute many of the skills I now have to his instruction and mentoring.

Frederator: Any big heroes of yours in the art world (or outside the art world)?

Michael: Shout outs to Ernie Gilbert and Gordon Hammond (long-time designers on OddParents), who’ve helped tremendously in getting me up-to-speed with the show’s well-established style. Every time I think I have a handle on drawing in the OddParents style, Ernie and Gordon raise the bar again and making the characters even more dynamic and sophisticated. I really have to “up my game” every time I design a show just to keep up with their pioneering. We also have a fabulous prop/background designer on OddParents who can draw circles around anything, and he is the multi-talented Eirik Paye. Background designer Jim Worthy is amazing. Alex Deligiannis is a color designer on our show and his work is brilliant. Beyond my friends and colleagues in the OddParents crew, I think Carter Goodrich and Peter De Seve have very illustrative styles that take character design to the level of a fine art. John Nevarez, Ovi Nedelcu, and Ben Balistreri are all master draftsmen and designers to whom I defer the maximum humility. Recently, I’ve also found a few artists online who’s work I never saw before but now love: Brigette Barrager, Brittney Lee, Miah Alcorn, and Lorelay Bove, to name a few. Mort Drucker, Jack Davis, and Al Hirschfeld will probably always be my favorite cartoonists, because their work originally inspired me to draw cartoons for a living.

Dougherty designs from FOP’s “Freaks and Greeks” episode

Frederator: What’s your most favorite subject to draw? And why?

Michael: Fantasy characters are always fun to put on a blank canvas, especially when I’m having writer’s block. People will never get tired of looking at mermaids, pirates, cowboys, knights, aliens, and leprechauns. They are classic characters that are open to endless interpretations. It’s also a nice cheat because, while your audience will always be very critical of mistakes made in drawings of naturalistic, human characters, they will be more willing to accept the exaggerated, cartoonish looks of a fantasy character. The zanier the better!

Frederator: How did you get your first job in animation?

Michael: In late summer of ‘05, I took a semester off from Art Center to assemble my portfolio and take a stab at getting a job in animation. I wanted a character design position but, frankly, I would have accepted an unpaid intern position as an alternative to being in school and to get my foot in the door of the animation industry. So, I thought it might be a good idea to self-publish and distribute my portfolio on the cheap. I went to a Kinko’s-type printing shop and made black-and-white, twenty-page stapled booklets containing my amateur character designs, life drawings and observational sketches. I printed hundreds of these little booklets and took them to comic shops around L.A. for them to sell at $5 a pop. I also dropped my books off for free at animation studios, gave them away to teachers and friends, and mailed them to studios outside of L.A. Well, it just so happened that Mike Mattesi, my figure drawing instructor at Art Center, also taught a figure drawing class at Nickelodeon. He very graciously offered to take my booklets and hand them out to the members of the class who were also professional animation artists at Nick. In December ‘05, I got a phone call from CG artist Josh Book saying that he really liked my sketchbook and that I would then be receiving a phone call from his producer, Audu Paden. Both were working on Nick’s first in-house CG cartoon series, Tak and the Power of Juju. Audu called me and said he wanted me to do some freelance character design on the series. I found out later that Audu offered freelance work to myself and a number of very skilled artists as a way of auditioning and testing us to fill two character design positions on the show. Audu was very gracious and kept bringing me back for several weeks of freelance work to help me zero in on the show’s style. By March ‘06, Audu hired the amazing Jennifer Wood and I to design the show’s character assets. Scoring my first full-time design job in animation was so exciting! Getting hired on FOP in July ‘07 was a blast, and I’ve loved every moment of working on this show.

Frederator: Are you working on Butch Hartman’s TUFF Puppy, too?

Michael: I’m slated to do character designs alongside Ernie and Gordon when TUFF Puppy goes into episodic production, and I’m really looking forward to it. It’s going to be an awesome show!

Frederator: Any outside projects you’re working on?

Michael: Right now, I’m collaborating with my older brother and children’s book author, Thomas Dougherty, on a new book which I should finish illustrating some time in the fall. I also enjoy updating my website and blog with my own personal artwork.

Thanks for the time, Michael.

You can (and should) visit Michael’s website and blog. His Flickr page has lots of terrific original Dougherty art, too.

– Eric