Your Guide to the World of Furry Fandom
Nellie Le is another artist with a watercolor style and a very straightforward cartoony look — which she puts forward to good effect. At her web site she shows off her latest paintings and prints, but as you can see at her Shopify store she also offers her art on a variety of buttons, bags, pillows, and other household goodies. And, as you can see, many of her items are selling out fast!
image c. 2018 by Nellie Le
Jen Ena is another artist we met at WonderCon (it’s good for those!) As you’ll see on her web site she specializes in highly-stylized fantasy portraits of fairy folk and magical women. But, if you follow the links to her “Miniatures”, you’ll see her other skill: Creating really, really small paintings of kittens, little dogs, and other fuzzy things. Many of which you can purchase at her Big Cartel store.
Image c. 2018 by Jel Ena
Braden Duncan is an illustrator who creates watercolor-style works under the name Clockwork Art. According to her web site, her main artistic muse is a black kitten named Diesel. The kitten certainly turns up in much of her artwork! (There are a pair of grey kittens who just joined the household, and they’ve been making appearances too.) She also has an affinity for birds — and, as you can probably guess from her moniker, a thing for steampunk. Much of her work is available as prints or ‘fridge magnets from her Etsy Store.
image c. 2018 by Braden Duncan
That’s the official slogan of Joan Marie, a fine artist we met at WonderCon. She works in a pastel watercolor style, creating works of many animal species (mammals, birds, and more) and fantasy creatures as well. And, as you can see at her web shop, she offers those works on a variety of items — not only the standard t-shirts , tote bags, and mugs but dresses and pant-suits as well.
image c. 2018 by Joan Marie
Another cool item we picked up from Animation World Network: “Newbery Honor-winning author Adam Gidwitz and Mixtape Club founders Jesse Casey and Chris Lenox Smith premiered online the animated debut of The Unicorn Rescue Society, whose adventures continue in a series of books for middle-grade readers from Penguin Random House.” The kids of the Unicorn Rescue Society (along with their companion Jersey, a friendly Jersey Devil) help with the needs of mythical creatures that adults don’t even believe in. “The Unicorn Rescue Society is a secret organization. Its mission is to keep the creatures of myth and legend safe. Dragons, Bigfoot, chupacabras — and maybe even unicorns. Every day, the threats to these rare and wonderful animals grow. They are hunted. Their habitats are destroyed. And the Unicorn Rescue Society is their only hope.” Rather than being adaptations of the books themselves, the animated shorts spread the word about the book series and take a behind-the-scenes look. The AWN article has a link to the first cartoon.
image c. 2018 Mixtape Club
Bored Inc. is the interesting name chosen by an art collective we met at WonderCon. Here’s how they describe themselves on their web site: “We are a mother & daughter design team creating super cute characters on lots of different products. We hope our characters make you happy and encourage you to explore your creativity and imagination!” They are especially adept at fantasy enamel pins, featuring their character “Afro-Cat” and others. Not to mention magnets, buttons, stickers, and other goodies.
image c. 2018 Bored Inc
Ward’s Valley is a new full-color fantasy graphic novel from IDW and Top Shelf Comics. “Ward is a grumpy gnome who only wants to be left alone. He never asked for company… but when his beautiful forest starts filling up with animals, it’s more than just grumpiness that makes him nervous. Mysterious trolls are one the loose and Ward will need all the help he can get to defend Ward’s Valley.” This is interesting to note: The art is by Brenda Hickey, known for her work on IDW’s My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic series, the the story is written by Bobby Curnow, the My Little Pony series editor. Look for it on the shelves now.
image c. 2018 Top Shelf Comics
Getting in on the ground floor regarding a new animated film — We don’t even have any images yet! But, here’s what we got from Variety: “Production is now under way at Cinesite in Montreal on Extinct, an animated feature being directed by David Silverman, the co-director of Pixar hit Monsters Inc. The film is a co-venture between multi-territory distributor China Lion Film, which will finance the picture, and China’s Wink Animation, part of Huayi Brothers Media. The adventure-comedy involves an adorable species of fluffy animals, called flummels. When two flummels are transported into the present day, they learn that their genus has become extinct, and travel back in time to try to save their race. The story is written by written by Joel H Cohen, John Frink, and Rob LaZebnik (The Simpsons).” According to the article, look for it in late 2020.
image c. 2018 China Lion Film
Hey, remember Tentacle Kitty? The little plushie feline with 10 wiggly things? Well she’s been growing in popularity, enough that now Dark Horse Press bring us the Tentacle Kitty Coloring Book. “Tentacle Kitty, or ‘Pink One’ as she was called in her tribe, is a kitty from another dimension, that happens to have tentacles. After a series of unfortunate event, she is trapped on Earth trying to find a way home. Armed with ten tentacles, an adventurous spirit, and new friends, what could go wrong?” Featuring 96 pages of art by the likes of John Merritt, Amy King, Yishan Li, Brittney Williams, Aubrey Aiese, and Rootis Tabootus, it wiggles its way onto book shelves this coming May.
image c. 2018 Dark Horse Press
