Fourth of July by Anuwolf

“Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation and freedom in all just pursuits.” – Thomas Jefferson.

Happy Birthday, United States of America!

I love the family and food and happy faces that Independence Day brings, but I am not a fan of the loud noises that come with it. I am absolutely terrified of fireworks – even just the start of a whistle makes it hard for me to breathe because of how anxious I get. Kovtapyroergasoiphobia is the name of the phobia and while I can’t pronounce it, it doesn’t make it any less real. So while I wish America a happy birthday and hope you all have a fabulous day filled with family and friends and hot dogs, I will be with my pups hiding in the house with my music turned as loud as I can make it.

Speaking of pups, make sure yours are safe inside. Dogs and cats are not fans of this holiday. Love them and keep them indoors.

Happy Independence Day!

What time is it? It’s ADVENTURE TIME! Or really – it’s time for Cartoon Network to get a Summer Refresh! Earlier this month, I was contacted about this particular campaign and was super excited to see Cartoon Network’s latest makeover. If you’re an avid Cartoon Network fan, you’ve most likely already seen this, but just in case you haven’t (or you’re just tuning in now), I’ll explain it to you.

The Summer Refresh Project

“Courtesy of its in-house creative agency Creative Group, Cartoon Network received a summer makeover, with a new set of brightly colored images and a video seamlessly blending the work of top animators around the globe. As part of the 2013 ‘Summer Refresh’ the new graphics feature popular Cartoon Network characters, such as the Annoying Orange and Finn and Jake from Adventure Time. Inspired by their cool new look, Creative Group took the daring step of stitching together a 60-second video comprising the work of six different animators and animation companies from around the world.”

The video is pretty kick-ass. Check it out here or watch below:

An Exquisite Corpse of Animators!

As mentioned, six different animation studios were approached to submit 10 second pieces for this video. The only rules they were given were to stick to the color scheme, include characters from certain Cartoon Network shows (Adventure Time, Regular Show, MAD, Ben 10, Gumball, Looney Tunes, and Annoying Orange), and not show any nudity. What you see before you is an amazing and seamless work of moving art.

The animation studios that took part in the Summer Refresh project were Impactist (Portand, OR), Awesome Incorporated (Atlanta, GA), CRCR (France), Alex Grigg (UK), Eamonn O’Neill (UK), and Rubberhouse (Australia), with music created by Impactist.

Leslie Kleine, senior producer of the Creative Group in charge of this makeover, said of the project, “We referred to this as our science experiment, mainly because we weren’t totally convinced that it would work, [Creative Group and Adult Swim Creative Director] Jacob Escobedo had this vision of several animators of varying styles creating unique pieces that could then be stitched together into one interstitial. In the end, we reached out to animation teams from Australia, France, Portland Oregon, Atlanta Georgia, and two from the UK, and they were all enthusiastic, even though they wouldn’t know what the others were doing. … This project was an incredible lesson in risk, but also one of the most rewarding that I’ve ever worked on. What we got exceeded our expectations.”

Leslie Kleine is a Senior Producer for Cartoon Network’s Creative Group with Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta, GA and has been with the company for 13 years. Prior to working at Cartoon Network, she spent a year stage managing at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, TN. Leslie holds two degrees from the University of Alabama in Telecommunications & Film and Theatre.

I had a chance to interview Leslie a little more on Cartoon Network’s new look and the process of the whole thing. It’s a really cool inside look into how the design and branding process works for projects like these for big networks. So without further introduction, on with the interview!

Interview with Cartoon Network’s Leslie Kleine

01. Where did the original idea for the Summer Refresh project come from? Tell us a little about it and how the idea to use other animators came about.

The idea came from our VP of Design, Jacob Escobedo. He had been admiring a number of animators and was looking for an opportunity to work with them in a way that would allow them to maintain their own animation styles. He proposed the Equisite Corpse concept & we all agreed that we had to try it.

02. Considering that there were only three simple rules for the animators, were you worried about the outcome? What were the biggest risks of the project and how did you get around them?

Worry never crept in. We had no idea if the pieces would stitch together but we thought we’d at least end up with some really great :10 bumps! Regarding challenges, we knew it was critical that we have clear communication & collaboration but we were working in multiple time zones so we utilized Basecamp to post updates and share progress. It was a wonderful resource for us. The final posts were one big love fest with everyone gushing over each other’s work.

03. What did the process look like? Being that there were so many people involved, what was the timeline like?

The first stage was music. Michael Ouweleen, SVP of the Creative Group, had been listening to Impactist so we reached out to them about making some tracks for us. Right before the call, we discovered that Impactist is a powerhouse duo, Kelly & Daniel, who also direct and animate. They’re probably whipping up a cure for the common cold in their spare time. But seriously, they delivered the first pass of music and we chose our top two tracks – no notes. We immediately invited them to take one of the :10 slots to animate.

We asked the animators to work simultaneously so the timeline was fairly straightforward with everyone hitting the same dates. The first delivery was each animator’s final frame of their allotted :10, which was the starting point for the next team.

04. I’m a big fan of the color scheme y’all chose. Where did the inspiration for that come from?

Our network design DNA is black and white checkerboard with an infusion of CMY. We wanted to update the look this year so our design team collectively made some adjustments which included brightening the CMY.

05. In my eyes, this project was a success! I love the new look and the video was really amazing (and seamless) to watch! Are there any plans to do this again in the future?

Thanks – we’re so proud of the work from every team. I don’t know if we’ll tackle another Exquisite Corpse but I can guarantee that we’ll dive into the unknown again.

06. What was your favorite part of working with all these people?

When we called to pitch the job, we hadn’t worked out the process yet so we were like, “Hey, we like you. Do you want to work with a bunch of animators from around the world? We’ll email you the details later.” The amazing thing was that everyone we spoke to jumped on board – and it wasn’t for the cash! They were all so gracious and collaborative! Now you have a taste of how our Basecamp posts read!

07. And finally… What’s your favorite color?

It’s a three-way tie between cyan, magenta and yellow. I’m subconsciously working them into every facet of my life though my two boys have drawn the line at magenta shoe laces.

What Time Is It? It’s… The End!

Thank you to Leslie for taking time to answer my questions and for everyone from Creative Group and Cartoon Network for the awesome project. Everyone be sure to check out Cartoon Network and let me know what you think! I would love to hear your thoughts on the video!

“Making his plush debut, it’s the cuddliest, cutest Little Moon God! He is an original character I created years ago based off an Inuit legend about the Sun and the Moon. In the Inuit legend, the moon is a male deity and chases the female deity of the sun all throughout the sky for eternity. The character has evolved over the years and I’ve now refined him into a super cute design fitting for a perfect, unique and exciting plush toy.”

Whenever I see an illustrator I follow get on the crowdfunding bandwagon and start up a Kickstarter, I have to jump on it. So when I saw that Kaitlin ‘Kit’ Reid had created a Kickstarter for her gorgeous Little Moon God Plush, I sent her an email straight away asking to showcase it and interview her. Thankfully for you all, she said yes!

I love LOVE Kit’s artwork and I think it’s every artists’ dream to see one of their creations created into something physical enough to cuddle. I’m so happy I give Kit’s Kickstarter a little push to enable her to meet her stretch goals and create more gorgeous pieces of art. That being said, let’s get on with the interview!

Kickstarter Interview: Kaitlin Reid

01. Where did the idea of the Little Moon God come from? How has his character evolved and why did you decide to make a plush out of him?

The idea for the Little Moon God came from a college assignment, actually. We were tasked with illustrating a folktale of our choosing. I chose a very interesting legend about the origins of the sun and moon, and created two characters to embody those themes. At first the Little Moon God was “moon man” and he stood upright on two legs, and had glowing teal tattoos all over his body. He has morphed into the little fellow we know and love over 5 years or so. I decided to try to make a plush out of him, specifically, because he has always been a character people are drawn to, plush I feel a certain connection to him as well having worked with the character for so long.

02. How did you go about defining your pledge levels and rewards? Your stretch goals?

It’s a lot of math, planning, and kind of hoping it pans out. I’m not going to lie, it was very stressful and I almost quit a few times. My wonderful boyfriend helped me through it and supported my horrible math skills by supplying his own. You need to factor in your taxes and shipping fees, and be willing to gamble with potentially spending money out of your own pocket. If I just hit the basic funding level, I’d still have to put money into the project. There is no such thing as free money!

03. What’s been your favorite part of the whole Kickstarter process?

The love and support of people that I both know and do not know! It’s been an incredible first few days. I never dreamed I’d hit my funding level within the first 24 hours. It’s incredibly validating to see so many people really excited for your work.

04. What’s been the hardest part of the process? How did you deal with it?

I believe the hardest part was the one I mentioned before. I did almost quit a few times because the numbers seemed so against me and almost impossible to make. I would never have imagined bringing in over $5,000 in pledges so quickly.

05. What advice would you give fellow illustrators and creatives who are looking at starting their own Kickstarter campaigns?

Research! Spread your social media networks! And most of all really do your accounting. I’m learning as I go, and it’s certainly the least fun part about the whole thing. You really need to budget everything and come up with multiple scenarios for how it might all go down. You can’t predict pledges, so budget for the worse case scenario so you don’t actually wind up in the red from the kickstarter! Research what it will require to package and ship all of your orders out as well, it gets expensive fast.

06. LAST QUESTION! What is… your favorite color?

Ahh, I have to say pink! Though right now I am SUPER obsessed with the mint color that’s been floating around this seasons fashion…I painted my studio in mint a few months ago!

Kaitlin Reid graduated MICA and currently works for a small animation studio in Baltimore. In her down time, she enjoys drawing fantasy critters and people, making costumes, and going to conventions.

You can find from Kaitlin on her website Sunset Dragon, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Etsy!

This much-awaited (much, much, MUCH awaited) Kickstarter project is the brain child of my friend Clay Gardner (with gorgeous illustration work by Niko Geyer) and pretty much SHATTERED its goal within hours – JUST hours. It’s called OVA: The Anime Role-Playing Game and I am so excited to start playing this game. I love anime, and I love tabletop RPGs, so I feel like this was made for me. And it seems, a lot of people feel the same way. The original goal was $7,500 but at the moment of writing this, they’re sitting pretty at $90,728. Holy crap, right?

“OVA: The Anime Role-Playing Game is exactly what it says in the title, a tabletop RPG lovingly crafted to capture the diverse worlds of Japanese animation. Save the princess (or prince!) from a fire-breathing dragon, tackle invading squadrons of giant robots, or find true love amid campus hijinks – everything you need is inside!”

Clay was sweet enough to take a moment of his time and answer a few questions about his awesome Kickstarter campaign. I figure the man behind the project would be able to tell you a little more about it than I can. So let’s start!

The Interview: with Clay Gardner

01. Tell us a little about your Kickstarter. Where did the idea for it come from and who is all working on it?

I wrote the beginnings of OVA around ten years ago. I was just getting into anime heavily, and I wanted to represent the shows I was enjoying in role-playing form. But at the time, I felt constrained by most games available. Many great and fun systems existed, of course, but nothing seemed to let me create the character I wanted to. Even point-buy systems, which on paper were supposed to open up possibilities, always seemed to punish making cinematic decisions. Having a character good with both a gun and martial arts had very little to do with a character’s effectiveness in the game, but almost always resulted in a crippling reduction in available points. And so too with multiple flashy attacks, or really anything done for the sake of “being cool.” I wanted a game that embraced doing things for the fun of it, and soon, OVA took shape. I released it as a PDF in 2005, with a print run following the next year.

This Kickstarter is for a new, revised version of OVA. The game holds onto the same ideals I had a decade ago but is improved with all the experience I’ve gained in the time between. A brand new layout, art done by a single talented artist Niko Geyer, and many refinements and expansions to the rules make the game better than ever before. It’s OVA as I knew it always could be.

02. What was the hardest part about putting together a campaign like this?

I hope it’s not too much of a cop-out answer, but I feel like getting the whole thing together was the hardest part! By itself, each element was a lot of work, but being able to juggle creating a video, the page graphics, all the groundwork for promoting the kickstarter, and all the text the project required at the same time…well…I’m glad it’s all done!

03. What has the process been like getting OVA: The Anime Role-Playing Game together? What came first – stories, characters, worlds, etc? How do you keep it all organized?

Because OVA already existed in some form, working on the new edition sort of jumped between everything in no particular order. I’d spend some time creating a new character, who’d inspire a new rule or revision. Or maybe a new rule would change the way I thought a character should be written. But I think it was always about characters at heart. That is why we play role-playing games, after all, and I wanted to make sure that every part of the new OVA was dedicated to making the process of realizing a character as simple and fun as possible.

As for how I keep it all organized, I tend to jot down all my ideas in text files before introducing it into the actual manuscript. After I had the manuscript more or less complete, I began typesetting the book while making small revisions I felt were appropriate. I guess you could look at each file type like a different draft, with the actual InDesign layout file being my last pass for the text.

04. What advice do you have for others who are thinking about starting their own RPGs or Kickstarters?

Take the time to make your page look as good as possible. While a solid idea will get support based on its own merit, a professional presentation instills confidence in a project and shows that you’re the kind of creator that is serious about bringing a product to completion. Show finished, polished examples of your work in action, and if possible, make graphics that spell out exactly what each of your pledge levels offers.

If you’re kickstarting a game (be it an RPG, a board game, or even a video game) give visitors a way to try it out. Whether you offer a print-in play version, a condensed copy of the rulebook, or just a demo, people appreciate being able to know what they’re getting and not just acting upon a sales pitch.

Oh, and plan to take the whole first day off so you can dedicate it to your Kickstarter. *laughs*

05. And finally! If you were to sit down at a table to start playing OVA, who would be your ideal/dream RPers to play with? Can be anyone, living or dead. Who would they play?

That’s a tough one! If we expand the “anyone living or dead” magic to include breaking language barriers, I think it would be fascinating to play the game with Japanese story-telling greats like Hayao Miyazaki and Osamu Tezuka. And of course Ryo Mizuno of Record of Lodoss War fame. I wonder how he’d feel about OVA’s rules in comparison to systems like D&D and Sword World that formed the basis of so many of his stories?

What characters would they play? Ones from their own tales? New ones whole-cloth? Hard to say…but it would be kind of magical if one of them took up the Game Master’s hat instead!

Keep Pledging for Rewards!

Right now, the goal is to hit $100k and I fully believe they can do! Let’s help get them there – if they get there, a new reward will open up, and I would love to get my hands on it. So what are you waiting for? Go kickstart this project!

I have Chris Rickert, ringmaster behind the Midnight Carnival troupe of volunteers for The Last Unicorn tour (you’ll be hearing more about this shortly), to thank for introducing me to this awesome Kickstarter. I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it before or it hadn’t somehow come across my radar considering the names involved with this project, but I’m so glad I got to be involved before it was over.

After I pledged, I got a note from Daniela Di Mase, one of the producers of the movie, asking if I’d like to write about it on my blog. Of course I jumped on the chance and here we are. So without further ado: Blood Kiss.

Blood Kiss: Not Just Another Vampire Movie

“There’s nothing supernatural about vampires.

My vampires, that is. In blood kiss, everything’s explained in terms of a symbiotic micro-organism that alters the vamps’ mitochondrial DNA. It renders them allergic to sunlight and silver, but they can still be reflected in mirrors and have no particular aversion to the cross. (Some might even believe in god.) They’re much stronger and faster than humans, and practically immortal to boot.

In terms of story, there’s something very seminal about the way it unfolds. Without going into specifics, I think I can safely say that it hits all the tropes of both the detective genre and the vampire genre, and does so in a very organic way.

You want to bring people to the movie’s end with the feeling that it couldn’t have ended any oher way, that the ending’s inevitability is highly satisfying, and yet they didn’t see it coming. If you can do that, you’ve created gold.” – Michael Reaves.

That pretty much sells it for me. But if you need a bit more: Michael Reaves, who has written for Batman: The Animated Series, Gargoyles, The Twilight Zone, Star Trek: TNG, and so much more, is the mastermind behind this project and has pulled in quite a few of his talented friends, including Neil Gaiman (yes!), Amber Benson, and Tom Mandrake. Blood Kiss is described as classic film noir with a twist: vampires.

Honestly, I feel like I should stop there because I don’t know what else to say that would make you want to go – the story sounds genius and the list of folks taking part in this is enough for most people to cough up whatever they have in their wallets. You still have 7 days to do so too! Check out the Kickstarter page and make your pledge while you still have time. There are some excellent pledge levels and incentives to give.

You can find them on Facebook, Twitter, and also check out their youtube channel for interviews and more videos. Including this little gem from Neil Gaiman himself:

What are you waiting for? GO PLEDGE TO BLOOD KISS!