Germans in the Woods from Rauch Brothers on Vimeo.

86-year-old World War II veteran Joseph Robertson fought at the Battle of the Bulge. Over 60 years later, he still cant forget one soldier he killed there.

So, if I understand this correctly, back in the 60’s the Southern Baptist’s Radio and Television Commission commissioned a new animated series to be aired on local TV stations around Texas on Sunday mornings. The series, called Jot, was produced by Dallas studio Keitz & Herndon and followed a kid struggling with the temptations around him. Amid Amidi wrote about the studio in his book Cartoon Modern and on his Cartoon Modern blog.

Two of the episodes have been posted on YouTube. The design of the show is beautiful… I’d love to own some of these on DVD.

Here’s a commercial for the Air Force Reserve designed by Preston Blair.

What’s this? Two posts in a single day?! Goodness.
Well, everybody’s favorite record label, Asthmatic Kitty, is holding a contest for filmmakers of all sorts to help celebrate the release of Rafter’s upcoming album, Music for Total Chickens. The rules are simple: Pick one of the four pre-leased tracks from the album, make a video for it, and then post it to the Rafter Contest group on YouTube. A panel of celebrity judges vote and, if you win, you get prize money. To help get the word out, I was asked to create a little promotional video for the contest. Here’s what I came up with… its set to the song “Encouragement” off of the upcoming album. It’s kinda weird- you’ve been warned.

Lookit! It’s Frosty’s animated debut!
UPA’s Frosty the Snowman from 1954.

That Jeaux Janovsky! He’s something else!

Recently he interviewed me for the Channel Frederator blog and now that very interview is up on the web for you to look at. And read. Reading is the key here. You can look but it probably won’t mean as much. Read it here! And read the other posts there as well… they’re most excellent.

Thanks Jeaux!

This is a rough sketch that I did the other day. It’s of a boy who doesn’t know what to wear because he has no clue as to what the temperature is outside. Poor child. Anyways, since this was to be animated, I built everything in Flash. Here is what the final image ended up looking like:

Like I said, this was animated… well, is partially animated; I’m still working on it. Maybe I’ll post a clip or two once it is done. I guess that all depends on whether it makes me vomit or not. Vomit is usually a good indication that it will make others sick as well. See larger sizes here and here.

So a while back, about a year ago, back when I was working on Squibs, I created this little short with the help of Erich Pelletier. It was an Easter Egg on the seventh disc in the series and was a fun take on light a la the old horror movies of the 50’s and 60’s. Personally, I was really happy with the way this one turned out. The shining star of this piece, for me, is the audio. It is the actual audio for an old, public domain horror movie from 1955 called Daughter of Horror (also known as Dementia). Animating to music is something that I have not done much of, so it was an interesting challenge for me… letting the music dictate the how and what of the piece. I should mention that Erich came up with all the text that was used in the trailer and Don Smith created the movie theater and audience… I was only responsible for the actual trailer shown on the screen (everything in black and white, in other words).

**Update- for some reason Wordpress doesn’t like for me to embed YouTube video into my posts… so click here to see the video**

 

 

The rapper piece I was working on was officially put to bed yesterday… at least for now. In honor of that I thought that I would post a short cycle that I animated last week. No, he’s not having a fit, he’s dancing. That’s right: dancing. Click on the picture to watch the action.

 Also, a very special thank you to everyone who emailed, commented on the new blog, and posted about the Crockpot’s new home. You’re all too nice… you should have a flavor of ice cream named after each one of you.