'Casting Off Again

It’s podcast time again, though this edition has been somewhat delayed for a number of vague and slightly frustrating reasons. The overall Skwigly operation has had an overhaul on the cards that will benefit all involved, including its audience, though progress on this has been halted for some reason or other. At the end of the day it’s stuff I’m simply not in the loop about so until I know what’s up I can’t really elucidate further. But I’m confident things will get pretty exciting sometime in October at the latest.
Until then give this latest episode a listen and, if you so desire, download it for keepsies! There’s the usual dollops of cartoon geekery such as 90s cartoon nostalgia and Wacom Cintiq love, but as ever the real highlights are the fine folks Steve and myself get to interview. These include Neil Boyle, protégé of Richard Williams and director of the fantastic and nearly 100% traditionally animated film “The Last Belle”, along with Richard Randolph of Komixx, producer of the new kids’ show “Toby’s Traveling Circus” who has some very valuable insight into that side of the looking glass for any aspiring producers out there (who I consider myself to be amongst). Also there’s part two of my interview with John K, which I’m still over the moon about and expect I will be for a good long while to come. Now that his Kickstarter campaign has come to a successful close, this portion of our chat covers several other means of his pre-“Cans Without Labels” career, including a heartwarming tale of Bob Clampett’s…hormones. You can listen to the whole thing below or subscribe on this newfangled iTunes thingy the kids are all talking about.
Skwigly Podcast 05 (19/09/2012) - John Kricfalusi, Neil Boyle & Richard Randolph by Skwigly Animation Podcast
On a final note, I’ll be the beardy face of Skwigly at this year’s Animated Encounters, which is fairly convenient as the Arnolfini where it’s held is pretty close by. I’m in charge of pretty much all the festival coverage for the magazine so if you see me in the crows all on my lonesome then come say hi. Or just point and laugh derisively, as well you should.

Cheese & Nipples

The very green Land of Switzer, more precisely the town of Emmental, will be exposing Santa Claus's veiny thighs at the Emmentaler Filmtage this October. Said month is turning out to be a pretty busy one for "The Naughty List", with five fests and counting so far. It's certainly redeemed Emmental in my eyes, as frankly I have never been bowled over by the cheese which bears its name.As it turns out, my bi-monthly self-googling revealed that two other festivals in Italy (a country whose cheese is beyond compare - we get it, Ben, you're fat) snuck the film in earlier this year: Video Festival Imperia in April and the San Giò Verona Video Festival in July. It would've been nice to have been told before, but it kicks the festival count up to thirty-seven so far, which is pretty encouraging as the number I'm aiming for with this film is fifty by July next year.My figure drawing attempts have been plodding along, improving in some areas and plateauing in others. I'm finding that shading really does cover up a world of hurt, so I'm far less enamoured of the quicker warm-up sketches. Also the class I attend seems to have a tendency to favour slimmer, younger models, which are a lot trickier to replicate on paper as they have less focal points.
I'd make a great life model at the moment. My body is in this weird transitional phase where my limbs are toned while my torso is that of a middle-aged mother of ten. I'd get my kit off in a heartbeat for the cash but I don't trust that I'd be able to stay still for more than thirty seconds at a time. That and, y'know, li'l Ben can be unpredictable under pressure.
Here are some attempts with charcoal, to venture outside of my wheelhouse a bit:

And I've also been attempting some with my Cintiq. The issue, of course, being that I can't really bring it with me to a session, and my friends have all been selfishly unreceptive to coming over and getting naked for me in exchange for Asda deli pizza. So right now I'm working off freeze-frames of scenes from movies. Not ideal (and the ability to superimpose the stills over my drawings when I'm done and see just how horribly out of proportion they are is kinda depressing) but it's a start. Anyway, here's one. Guess the film and you win literally nothing:

Those little reminders that we're all hurtling towards death...

Art from "Ren's Retirement", season 3

The alarming revelation that "The Ren & Stimpy Show", probably my most crucial influence, debuted twenty years ago to the day means one thing above all else: I'm officially an old piece of shit. So in honour of this, here's a drawing I did to test out my Cintiq the other month:
I'm generally not into fan art, mainly because of the sociopathic insistence people have on putting the characters into horribly unpleasant sexual scenarios (although in the case of Ren & Stimpy John K already did that with the Lost Episodes). The old man behind them is Wilbur Cobb, one of the lesser-appreciated, post-Spümcø characters that I always had a fondness for as he was a dead ringer for my own granddad, right down to the coughing fits, missing body parts and talking in non-sequiturs.
About five years ago I slapped together a presentation on the show during my Animation MA, and threw it online when I first started this blog. it's a little patchy and my voiceover for it is horrible (and as a man who loves the sound of his own voice that's a telling admission, my friends) but what the heck, this seems like an appropriate enough occasion to dust it off:

Cruisin'

More fest news, "The Naughty List" will be part of another touring (or rather, cruising) festival from September 24th to October 3rd. The KROK International Animated Films Festival takes place on the Princess Dnipra which will be traveling through the Ukraine, stopping off at Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye, Sevastopol and Odessa. So, if you fancy some swashbuckling adventure (I'm sure river cruisers give you the option to swashbuckle), check it out.
Speaking of Eastern Europe, I found out recently that the woman who sold me my Wacom Cintiq is an Estonia-based model and artist who, by insane coincidence, is the face of David Thorne's hysterical 27b/6 website/book. Well, it's a coincidence because I recently became a huge fan of the website. If you're not familiar with Thorne, he's an Australian designer who, either from boredom or a career that has beaten him down to breaking point, publishes his email correspondence with a succession of recipients whose grasp of reality and humour is alarmingly literal. He cultivates a consummate douchebag persona although you always find yourself rooting for him. Anyway, it's a great go-to site for when I'm feeling all procrastinatey. And 'Tabitha' is a pretty talented artworker as well, so give her work a look.
Okay, I haven't talked about me for several sentences and frankly it's making my skin start to itch.I have two mini-edits of my films "Ground Running" and "The Naughty List" online at Virgin Media Shorts, one of those online short film competition thingies. They aren't in the running or anything, right now they're just two of about three-thousand that are presently viewable online. I'm usually a little loathe to put entire films up but as these versions are exclusive edits to accommodate the unusual 2'20" cutoff time I'm less precious about it. In both cases the stories (such as they are) are still pretty much the same. Some of the humour/timing doesn't play as well but given the concession I think they still work overall. Anyways, if you like you can give them a watch or several hundred. And share them with everyone you know - it doesn't affect whether or not they get shortlisted so I can't really be accused of trying to skew the judging in my favour.

Fatherhood

Today is a glorious day - for my life, my career and my emotional maturity as an adult. A couple weeks back I made the life-altering decision to adopt a li'l Estonian bundle o' joy. She was being neglected in her home country and, frankly, needed a more nurturing environment where she could be raised with the love and attention she deserved. Things didn't run as smoothly as hoped - multiple delays and red tape presented themselves, accompanied by much anxiety. For nearly an entire week she was being held by the British government before being released to me. It was a trying time for us both, I'm sure.
This weekend the bond of familial love won out and we're now together forever. Here's a pic - I've decided to call her Cindi:Sure milked that analogy dry, didn't I?
That's right, lovelies. Blessed art me, FOR I AM WITH CINTIQ! It had to be done, my desire to continue to produce traditional animation had been too long at odds with the back strain of...well, back strain. And endless hours spent cleaning, inking, scanning and re-cleaning each individual frame. Now I can do all that on the screen - the Cintiq essentially works like the world's most awesome Magna Doodle. Observe this classy product demonstration:

Predictably enough, the first thing I drew on it was my schwanz. What did you expect, a fucking sunset? This is me we're dealing with here.So, while I abandon all hope of finishing any of the eight billion projects I have on the go right now in favour of a lifetime of technologically wondrous doodling, my now pathetically antiquated film "The Naughty List" which I made with (sneer, scoff, derisively snort) pencils and paper has been snapped up for the 2011 edition of the Film Sharing Lo/No Budget Film Festival Tour, which will see it screened at various times/dates/locations throughout Germany from July to September. "Ground Running" was part of the 2009 tour so it's very cool to be involved again. I especially like the way my film is represented on the front of the program, flanked by a pair of bare boobies and a pair of gouged-out eyeballs respectively. Makes sense to me - tits, Christmas, gore - pretty natural grouping there.The usual info is up and online at their website if you want to see if the tour makes it anywhere near you. Assuming you're in Germany to begin with.