All the twos Titty2!

We've made 22 of these things... how weird!! Not much to say about this one really except that it was heaps of fun to make so watch it with eyeballs! Oh and Ryan is the voice of the hunter and did a bang up job!!

IN OTHER SPARKLE NEWS!!!

The peeps at What Now wanted to run a Sparkle Friends competition and we suggested kids draw themselves with Gungi as a Sparkle Friend, and that they would win a "one-of-a-kind" Gungi Plush Toy!! They liked the idea and we got Karla to sew it!!

Check out more pics here!!

2008 = New Sparkle Friends!!!

So after last years 10 episodes almost killed us, we thought we'd never be doing any more ever again, but after some careful thought and contract negotiation we decided we couldn't let the kids down came up with 10 new storylines!!
We still only get about a week on animation per each episode but we really tried to step it up this year and reckon these are, hopefully you'll agree, our best episodes to date. This first one was a bit tricky to begin with as we had to try and come up with an origin for the newest Sparkle Friend. At the end of last year 2 of the presenters, Richie and Tamati, left the show What Now, and thus we were down 2 Sparkle Friends. They then introduced a new presenter, Tumehe, and we had the task of fitting him into the Sparkle Friends "universe", which, thankfully, has been far easier than we thought as he's a really funny dude that really gets what we're trying to do.

Here's some of the design process...

And here's some process work from the episode...

Another cool thing about this years episodes is the show's new title sequence. It was a lot of fun to make and really makes it feel like a proper cartoon! We even managed to call in a favour from NZ Hip Hop superstar P-Money, to create a Sparkle Friends theme remix.

So here's the finished episode...

And it just keeps coming....

That's right we have even more new stuff to show off!! So here it is... being the reigning Auckland 48hours champs we were asked by the organisers of the comp to put together a short explaining what the 48 hours is. They then asked us if we could make it anaglyph 3D. So having never made anything like that before we, of course, said "Dam straight we can"!! It proved to be a bit tricky at first, seeing as we had to keep in mind that it was going to be projected onto a movie screen but full credit has to go to Tim who, as usual, figured out how to do it!!

The response has been really cool, and for those who didn't get to see it in 3D (it was an Auckland exclusive) now's your chance to check it out!! And if ya don't have 3D glasses, just use the ones we've supplied below!

The Monster's Guide to V 48hours in 3D! from Mukpuddy on Vimeo.

And here it is in 2D...

Sparkle to the power of 3!

Remember that time we said that thing about the thing and how we weren't doing any more Sparkle Friends and then it turned out we lied and now we've made a 3rd season!

Yeah....neither do we. Anyway, a brand spanking new series of Sparkle Friends is due to play on NZ TV in a few weeks, so we'll be posting the new episodes as they've gone to air.

We're pretty happy with the new episodes. We've pushed limited animation to its..... ah.....limits;) Anyhoo, here's the promo that's currently playing over here to wet your appetite.



IN OTHER SPARKLE NEWS!!!
So we just won a Freddie at the 2008 Channel Frederator Awards and were asked to contribute an acceptance speech, so check out the clip of us being stupid below! (we're at about the halfway mark)

Finally, something new from us!!!

Some people may be wondering what we've been up to recently, we've had a bunch of stuff on the go but the thing we're most stoked on is a pilot we've just finished up and it's for an idea we came up with a few years ago. The concept is a little odd and one that is a tad awkward to say out loud, the spark of the idea came from when Jeremy found out that when some woman give birth they also do a little poo.

And so our Flash animated 3 minute pilot is called "It's the Pughs" and is the story of a man so desperate for a son that after the birth of his daughter, decides to bring up the poo that follows as "his boy". The idea is based on our observations of the "typical" New Zealand bloke. The dad who wants nothing more that his boy to be the Rugby player he always wanted to be. As kiwi as this is, it seems to us this is a fairly universal trait.

As disgusting as the idea of raising a poo as a child is, we've tried to focus on the relationship between Rudy (the dad) and Peter (his poo son). As much as we embrace that the show will be a lot of gross poo jokes, we like to use the phrase "heartwarming toilet humour". As hard a sell as that is. We feel we've managed to touch on that in this short. We want people to love the little poo, then every now and then remember what he is and gag a bit :)

The Pughs are the quintessential "Kiwi family" and live in a fairly stereotypical NZ setting. We've never been ones for localising our work, as it's never really fit with the type of cartoon we love. But something seemed to click here and it all seems right. The "kiwiness" of the characters adds to their charm and should work on a odd level for people not familiar with the NZ way. We don't see "It's the Pughs" as being a show made only for NZ.

So enough talkie, please watch and let us know what ya think! We really want to make a series of this so feel free to leave comments, so we can show potential sponsors what ya think!!


It's The Pughs - Help Me Rudy! from Mukpuddy on Vimeo.



Here's some sketchy stuff too....



















UPDATE:
We've been lucky enough to have "It's The Pughs" featured on a couple of our favourite sites Frederator , Cartoon Brew , Cold Hard Flash and Drawn. A big thanks to Jeaux, Jerry, Aaron and Johnny, you guys rule!!

One more for the trophy cabinet...equals 2!

Well we've had to keep this under wraps for a few weeks and now we can shout it from the rooftops!! (remember capitals means shouting) WE WON THE KIWI AWARD AT THE 2008 CHANNEL FREDERATOR AWARDS!!

So firstly we want to give a huge thanks to the Channel Frederator team for nominating us in the first place. Fred, Eric, Jeaux and everyone else at "Red Robot HQ" have really supported us and our creations from day one and we will always be eternally grateful for that!

Secondly, thanks to everyone who voted. We're always pretty stoked with what we make but aren't to sure how it'll be received by the general public so it's super cool to know that you guys out there like our stuff too!!

Old Freddy is a little wary of his "upgrade"...

Alex stuff...

I painted this for my mum for Mothers Day!



I also recently got these tattoos. Firstly I decided, since I paint my cat Nardis all the time, I should get him tattooed on me. It's the first tattoo I have that is one of my drawings...


I also just got this done, it's on the bottom of my fingers and done in UV ink. It's a bad photo but it only shows up under black light...

My wife Karla did these on me.. she's awesome!!!

INVADED SPACE

Last year we took a trip to the States, you might remember, we didn't shut up about it for a while. Anyway, we took a little pitch book full of ideas and we had one spare page that needed to be filled. So like rabid crazies, we whipped this little sucka up. When we get more time we'd like to do a few more with these little fellas.

WE GOT NOMINATED!!!

Well smack my bum and call me Keith, we've been nominated for a Freddie!!

Over the last few days Channel Frederator have been announcing the categories and the nominees for the 2008 Channel Frederator Awards, and right there, in the thick of it all is a crazy new category called the "Kiwi Award" and by god if an episode of Sparkle Friends isn't all up in it!!

So if you care about orphans and baby seals........vote for us. We'll use our win to try and right the wrongs of the world.

http://www.channelfrederatorawards.com/

The power lies with you, don't screw it up. Orphans!!!!
Lots of love
Keith

Frederator Artwork!!

We were once again asked to contribute some artwork for the Channel Frederator Awards programme, the theme this year is "Robots in the Metropolis". Thanks for letting us be a part of it fellas! Maybe Camp Fear will be up for an award this year ;)

OUR HEROES....

We wouldn't be artists if it wasn't for this type of carry on...

Painted Thingys...

Here's 2 of my latest paintings. The first, the dog, was for a buddy, to give to his sister for her wedding and the other is for another friend, Cam. His girlfriend is surprising him with a transformer and I picked Soundwave coz he was one of my favs as a kid!! Sorry for the bad photos, I can never seem to get really descent ones of my paintings:( -Alex

Take it!!!

It's been a while since we last posted anything animation flavoured. We have been working away on a few things. Some really cool stuff, some.......slightly ho-hum.

Last year we were asked to work on a Music video for a NZ HipHop/R&B group. The idea for the video was cool. Kind of a throw back to Teeny Little Super Guy from Sesame Street........but with a tiny budget.

We only had a few days to throw together the animated segments, and it was all very experimental on the directors behalf (we didn't direct this by the way). Unfortunately due to the lack of budget and time the animation suffered. On top of that we were pretty restricted to the amount of room we had to animate within and the framing of the shots was fairly poor, but that was out of our hands.

Anyway, here's the clip. You may want to turn down your speakers unless your a glutton for punishment........ooooo, he went there.

Not our finest moment, but a moment none the less. Twas an interesting learning curve, and one that we are still waiting to be paid for. Shazaaaam!!

Plush Bunnies..

Me (Alex) and my wifey have created these dudes for Easter fun times!! You can check out some of the process behind making them on our plush blog!

I done this a while ago...

For my brother's 21st birthday, he's really into 300 so I did a Spartan type fella fighting some beasties. As always it's acrylic on canvas -Alex

Something cool...

Well this has been in the works for a little while now, just after we won the Auckland 48Hours Film comp with Camp Fear in fact, but the New Zealand version of 20/20 are doing a story on us and we went into their studios the other night to record our interviews about why we love making cartoons and how we want to take over the world, it was very surreal! At this stage it looks like it'll air sometime mid-March but we'll keep you posted. Here's some pics Alex took of Tim and Ryan getting interviewed...

And the new Overbite...

NEW Painting!!!

2 of my good friends are moving to Melbourne with their little boy, so I decided to do a painting for them and since Gabriel (their son) is obsessed with diggers I combined his favourite thing with my favourite to paint at the mo... my cat Nardis!!!