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Funny Animal

E-Books for Kids — and Art Collectors

And more from CTN Expo (it’s always cool!). According to their web site, “Mighty Yeti is an independent storytelling studio creating stories for the current generation of kids who enjoy their media and entertainment in exciting new ways. Founders Jennie Book and Josh Book have taken their many years of experience in the traditional entertainment industry and created products which children can interact with in a truly active way.” To that end they’ve created a series of interactive e-books for young readers — and some of those books have decidedly anthro content. Especially the one called A Shark Knocked On The Door. “Gutter races with Grandma are the best! But when a beloved toy boat is lost down the sewer, all seems lost until a friendly shark returns it and takes the boy and his grandma on a fantastical underseas adventure.” The publishers have built up enough material designing and creating these books that they’ve actually released The Art of Mighty Yeti Storybooks collection, featuring art by Eddie Betancourt, Roman Laney, Justin Rodrigues, and Nick Swift.

image c. 2018 Mighty Yeti

Play On Line

Here’s an interesting artist we found at CTN Expo. Natalie Murrow is an animation artist and illustrator (with lots of animal designs!). One of her big projects is an app for young folks called Kidomi. She says: “Kidomi is an app I worked on at Fingerprint Play. It is a mobile app that houses hundreds of 3rd party licensed activities from brands you know and trust. All of the activities are streaming, so you can access them without having to download, and are all available through a single subscription.” In addition to doing the interface design and several icon animations, she also designed a series of funny animal avatars that kids can customize and make their own.

image c. 2018 by Natalie Murrow

Bunny Bound by Magic

Found this thanks to Animation World Network: “Netflix has announced that it will produce the animated feature film, Escape From Hat, from two-time Academy Award-nominated director Mark Osborne (Kung Fu Panda, The Little Prince) together with writer Adam Kline (Artemis Fowl, The Clockwork War)… The screenplay is by Kline and Osborne, based on the book of the same name by Kline [illustrated by Brian Taylorye ed-otter], a new middle-grade novel that will be published by HarperCollins in Winter 2020… Escape From Hat brings light to the ancient mysteries of magic. In a fairy tale where black cats are bad and magic rabbits are good, balance is threatened when one such rabbit is cast into a mysterious realm of danger and shadow. There, our desperate hero rallies an unexpected band of allies and undertakes an impossible quest to escape from inside a magician’s hat – and return to the human boy he dearly loves.” Netflix say they plan to release the film in 2022.

image c. 2018 HarperCollins

All the Cute Little Billionaires

Here’s an interesting art and comic project we came across at CTN Expo: Sillycan Vale, created by Lewei Wang. Current there’s a Kickstarter Campaign for the project, that explains it like this… “Sillycan Vale is a town where each animal villager is the personification of a tech company from the real world. The goal of this project is to develop the whole concept into a comic series. The characters & story-lines are inspired by what’s happening between the real tech communities especially in Silicon Valley, California.” Currently the plan is to release the comic in three separate volumes, introducing new characters and development art in each, and then release the actual complete comic in September of 2019. As of this writing they have already exceeded their initial funding goal, so go check them out and see what’s coming next.

image c. 2018 by Lewei Wang

Art, Chocolate, and Sweaters

Another artist we met at CTN Expo: Stacey Sleight from Provo, Utah, who creates under the name of Stillustrated. Besides her original illustrations, animation character designs, and fan art, she has also created an original on-line comic based on the Ursa Major Award-winning game Undertale. According to her web site, “She is also a lover of hot chocolate, comics, and animals in sweaters.”

image c. 2018 by Stacey Sleight

The Baker and the Painter

By now (hopefully!) you’ve heard of Brush: A Fox Tale, the award-winning CGI short film. It tells the story of an artistic fox who is too shy to tell the pretty vixen next door he has a crush on her — but, his paintings have ideas of their own. Well now, meet the creators: Willi Anton and Faustina Arriola, both graduates from the California College of the Arts. Brush was their joint graduation thesis. Over at Willi’s web page you’ll find his demo reel, showing bits from his work on Brush and other projects. Meanwhile at Faustina’s page you’ll find not only her demo reel of 3D and 2D work, but also examples of her illustrations, and even samples of her work as a voice-over artist.

image c. 2018 by Anton / Arriola

Not Moose. Dog. And Squirrel.

Chances are you’ve seen (or at least heard about) Dog and Squirrel, part of Nickelodeon’s Animated Shorts Program. But have you met the creator, Andrea Gerstmann? Over at her web site you can see examples of her other works in character design, background painting, layout, and fine-art painting. Lots of animal stuff to see, plus a few humans thrown in for good measure.

image c. 2018 by Andrea Gerstmann

Furries from Central America

Here’s something interesting and unusual we came across at the the CTN Animation Expo this year. Fox and Chicken is an original animated film created by Space Rabbit Studios — in El Salvador. “Created by a talented team of local artist, with national and international awards, Fox & Chicken is aiming to be the first silent animated short movie done in El Salvador. The project has already seen some success through many events at a national level.” According to the web site, here’s who it’s about: “Fox & Chicken is the story of two inseparable friends and their many adventures in their quest for magic. Fox is a young wizard apprentice who has a dream of learning all the magic in the world and to discover the secrets of nature to become a master wizard. Chicken is an unconventional character for their species. She’s brave, curious and adventurous, she never doubts on accompanying Fox in his quest. Now we can see their adventures while we learn about nature and discover the hidden magic in all things.” The web site has a lot more about this and their other projects.

image c. 2018 Space Rabbit Studios

They Made a Monkey out of Her

Sorry, so sorry… Banana Sunday is a well-know black & white comic created by writer Paul Tobin and his wife, the artist Colleen Coover. Now, Oni Press have re-released the full series as a graphic novel — this time in full color thanks to Rian Sygh. Here’s the press release: “Kirby Steinberg is having a bit of trouble fitting into her new school. Sure, there’s the usual problems associated with being from “somewhere else,” but this time the new kid also happens to be the guardian for three talking primates. Chuck, the professorial orangutan. Knobby, the love-stricken spider monkey. Go-Go, the befuddled golden gorilla. These primates have learned to speak, thanks to the scientific processes of Kirby’s father. Or have they? What’s their real story? That’s what Nickels—Kirby’s new best friend and unfortunately dedicated school reporter—would like to discover. Can Kirby find time to develop a relationship with Martin, the dashing nerd? Steer clear of Skye, the high school’s #1 pillar of arrogance? Keep Knobby, Chuck and Go-Go from causing untold catastrophes? And, above all, will Kirby be able to hide the real origin of these three simians from Nickels? Oh, probably not.” Bleeding Cool has an interview with the creators as well as lots of sample pages.

image c. 2018 Oni Press