BACK TO SCHOOL!
O.K, I'm gonna try something new. Either it's gonna be really cool & a lot of fun, or it's gonna fail miserably. My guess is the later, but I'll give it a shot anyways... When I used to work in the studio, as a break from the monotony of the job at hand I would catch myself doodling in the corner of the paper, on a post it, & now on the cintiq. I'm sure every one of you does the same thing. I would get in these "drawing contests" of sorts with my designer friends. We would pick a topic, like leprechauns or unicorns or whatever & just run w/ it. Again, nothing new, I'm sure you've all done the same with your friends. Since I freelance at home now, I dont have this outlet. Sure I can still doodle, but half the fun was trying to top your buddys' drawing w/ something totally ridiculous. So I figured I'd try & get my fix through my blog. In honor of the kids goin' back to school I figured I'd start this experiment off with the topic being "schoolyard bully". If any of you are inclined to participate just attach a quick doodle in "comments". The weirder the better! Super rough is super cool, it should be fun. Quick doodles are fine. If this works out, maybe I'll try doing this like once or twice a month. I set the standard pretty low with this one, so please feel free to put my bully to shame. Think of it as "homework".

MORE SHORTIE'S
Just a few more of my shorties layouts.

MY BUDDIES AND ME
Diggin' through the archives, tryin' to find something new to post that you wont find on the website. Came across this illustration I did of a couple of friends. These are a few of the peops I worked with this past year over at Funny Garbage. From left... Phil Rynda (Uncle Phil), me, Tim Shankweiler, and Peter Browngardt. These are the folks that i worked with on the Converse commercial. The image was for a DVD insert.

THEN...





NOW...

SPOILER
Last April I entered my 1st film festival. "Spoiler" is a comedy film festival run by my good friend Drew Prochaska. In their words ...
"Spoiler is an excuse to get off your ass and make movies. Those participating in Spoiler have two months to produce a 5- minute comedy short using a topic that is voted on all involved. At the end of those two months, there's a night of drunken shenanigans. Everyone who submits a film recieves a DVD of all the entries. It's that simple."
What started out actually as a New Year's resolution is beginning to turn in to quite the film festival. Each Spoiler seems to get bigger & better.
Last April was my 1st entry, "Bend Over and Take It". I believe it was the 1st animated entry in the festival. The theme was "Action". It's more or less a glorified walk cycle, but the real film is what goes on in the background with the secondary characters. This was my 1st time actually animating to music. I was a bit nervous at 1st but soon found out that music actually made the animation process much easier. It's like built in timing, it's fantastic! I had a lot of fun with this piece & hope to do more festivals in the future. I was recently asked to do the opening title sequence for the upcoming spoiler in November, the theme being "Deadline". I've attaced the character i'm working on for the sequence. It's kind of a spoof on the old MGM openings... you know, with the lion. Guess he's aged a bit since those glory days. To find out more about spoiler visit www.spoilerfilms.com. To see "Bend Over and Take It", visit my site.

MORE PILOT SKETCHES
Here's a couple more sketches from the pilot I mentioned in a previous post.

THANKS!
Special thanks goes out to both Cartoon Brew and Drawn! for giving Carnival Cartoons a shout on their sites this past week. You guys rock, but, you already knew that. Thanks for the post & also for keeping us all in the loop w/ what's going on in the industry.

DANE COOK SHORTIES
I recently found out that a few of the "Shorties Watchin' Shorties" bits I did character layout on are on the new Dane Cook DVD "Retaliation". Dane Cook is one of the funniest stand-up comedians around in my opinion. His routines were always the most fun to animate because he himself is so animated. Plus he always told stories as opposed to one liners. He really made our job fun over at Augenblick Studios. Thanx Dane! Heres the link to buy the DVD... http://shop.comedycentral.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2030380. Apparently they're selling like hotcakes. If you wanna see more Shorties... sorry it got canned, but you can view some of our better Shorties bits on Augenblick Studios website (www.augenblickstudios.com) or Dane Cooks website (www.danecook.com)... I highly recommend both. They can also be viewed at www.comedycentral.com.

PILOT
My partner Garnet & I are currently working on a short/pilot for one of our cartoons. I don't wanna say too much about it because... well, because I guess I just want it to be a surprise. We have a hilarious script written by our good friend Chris Brown (credits include Southpark, New Adventures of Scooby- Doo, Friends, etc.). We are currently assembling a design pack & I thought I'd share with you a few roughs. I hope to do this continuously throughout the production. Anyways... enjoy!

MAGICAL REALM
These guys make me laugh, so I wanted to share. They're are a couple of "re-designs" I did for a buddy of of mine (Richard Mather, aka Dicko). Dicko is one of the craziest/funniest guys I know. I met him about seven years ago or so working as a designer on MTV's Downtown. Downtown was one of my best animation experiences. I was hired here fresh out of school as a character designer. It was a beautiful show that was highly underrated. It still shocks me that it wasn't recieved better. It was here I got to work w/ one of my favorite bosses to date Chris Prynowski. Prynowski is doing great things out in LA now I hear, check out his site www.titmouse.net. Back to Dicko... if you wanna see his original designs that I based these characters off of you can visit his site at www.dicko.org and click on Magical Realm, of course. I doubt they'll go with these, I think I veered too much from the original style, but it was a lot of fun. I just love drawing Renaldo. Why is it that drawing cats is so fun? Half of my portfolio is cat drawings... I wonder what that is all about?

BUZZED
Here's a new piece I created for an upcoming gallery show. This is the 1st print in a series of 3. I'm calling the series "buzzed" to coincide with the release of the new Buzz vinyl toy (which will also be displayed at the show). I tried a bit more of a realistic look on this one as opposed to the super cartoony style I normally draw in. I'm going to have it screenprinted (each poster as a series of 25). It will be hanging in the Stay Gold Gallery at 451 Grand St. between Union and Keap in Brooklyn NY. The show will be this January. Special thanx to Liz Artinian, co-curator of the gallery & fellow animator, for inviting me to be a part of this show.

TOYS!!!
Name 1 animator you know that doesnt have an overly enthusiastic fascination with toys. It's no secret that we animators LOVE toys. Hell, I've got 'em everywhere... on shelves, in closets, scattered on the floor, stuffed, vinyl... you name it. Yes, thats right, a grown man with stuffed toys, I don't care, laugh you know you got em too. I've always had a fascination with toys & have always dreamed about designing my own. Well, I'm proud to announce that my 1st toy is officially in production. "Buzz" is the 1st in what I hope is a series of carney characters I'd like to produce. This particular character is from a show my partner (Garnet Syberg-Olsen) & I created a while back called the "Carneys". You can view the trailer on my website or at www.atomiccartoons.com. I designed the Character & my buddy & toy biz big-shot the talented Eric Nocella (www.goldmane.net) did the sculpt. We're currently producing a limited edition run of 250 to test the waters. Buzz stands at approx. 7 inches tall & will be made of soft vinyl. He should be availible for purchase this January, price still TBD. You'll be able to buy Buzz through the Carnival Cartoons website.

I've been thoroughly enjoying the influx of recent artist blogs. I figured it was due time i started my own. The main reason I think these blogs are so inspirational is because its art the way the artist intended pure & simple. Theres no outside factors ruining the integrity of this art (producers, network execs,etc.) With all the crap on tv these days, its nice to know this type/quality of art still exists. Finally theres an outlet where this kind of art can flourish. Anyways... enough ranting thats not what this is about. And with that, I guess I'll start with my 1st entry. Many of you may not know who I am, so I'll start my 1st post with a shameless plug (I know lame, right). My name is Jared Deal I'm an illustrator/animator based in the big apple. I've been in the biz since '98 cycling through the various studios in NYC. I've had the good fortune of working at many of the big studios around here including MTV, Nickelodeon, Spike TV, Comedy Central, Augenblick Studios, Cartoon Network, etc. and meeting some of the coolest, most talented folks. Its a pretty small animation community out here, but theres a ton of talent. It always impresses me the quality of work my friends create. I wont bore you guys too much with my backstory. If you wanna get caught up, you can just visit my website at www.carnivalcartoons.com.