The MukBlog

Merry Christmas!!

2011-12-14T12:42:00.004+13:00

So your favourite Drunk Santa is back again spreading Christmas cheer...

Happy Holidays to ya and thanks for all your support this year! And as an added treat here's a wee clip of Ryan recording the voices of the above skit...

A NEW Mukpuddy sketchbook!

2011-12-09T17:19:00.013+13:00

That's right ladies and gents, the sketchbook we put together a few months back for this years Armageddon Expo is now up on our Lulu store. We'd appreciate your donation to the "Feed A Muk Foundation" so feel free to go BUY IT!!

Bird Crap!

2011-12-06T12:32:00.010+13:00

Here's a little something we've been working on for a while now, just doing bits and pieces here and there in between some paid work. It's actually an idea we came with last year when we were pitching our services to some local "youth" shows here in New Zealand and we thought it'd be cool just to make an example of exactly what we could make for them, so yeah, it's pretty local (not sure if anybody outside NZ will get it) but it cracked us up and here it is...

UPDATE...If you enjoyed the cartoon why not buy the shirt!

PEOPLE IN NEW ZEALAND or PEOPLE EVERYWHERE ELSE!

He's A Fun Guy Not A Fungus!

2011-11-25T09:16:00.002+13:00

We made this pilot at the end of 2008 for a company with an "orange logo", it didn't go anywhere past this stage but we had fun making it and hopefully one day we can make more of them...

More silly voices!

2011-10-17T09:13:00.003+13:00

This one is a bit "late in the game" since we completed the "How To Draw" shorts for What Now way at the start of the year but we had a footage sitting there and thought it'd be fun to cut something together to show all the different stuff Ryan was doing. Over the 10 shorts he did about 11 voices and, as always, he made for some hilarious out-takes...

Support NZ Made!

2011-10-11T14:35:00.005+13:00

For all our kiwi mates that don't like the "hefty" postage on our other merch we've just set up a shop with the awesome peeps over at 'Print Mighty' so now there's no excuse for not owning your very own piece of Mukpuddy... CHECK IT OUT!!!

Goodbye Sparkle Friends!

2011-10-04T12:15:00.004+13:00

For those of you who have followed Mukpuddy for a few years there's a good chance you know we make an animated series called, "Sparkle Friends". We started making Sparkle Friends back in 2006 and much to our surprise have since have created 43 episodes.

Sparkle Friends plays within a kids variety show in New Zealand called, What Now. This year was What Now's 30th Birthday and we thought it was a good opportunity to make a Sparkle Friends one-off special that, while playing tribute to What Now, also marked the end for the Sparkle Friends (a "good" end... not a "death" end, sillies!!).

Seeing as the cast of Sparkle Friends has changed over the years, each time coinciding with new presenters appearing on What Now, we thought it was only fitting to bring back all the old Sparkle Friends for a final adventure. We also thought it would be nice to cameo some old school What Now presenters from when we were kids.

Working on Sparkle Friends has been quite the experience and one that has really shaped Mukpuddy into the studio we are today. 43 episodes was an awesome run and one that we thought deserved an epic send off... So that's what we did!

"Pastie White Englishman"

2011-09-23T09:03:00.001+12:00

Here's an update from Muk HQ...

NEW Muk shirt!

2011-09-06T08:46:00.004+12:00

So this clip was getting passed around the New Zealand interwebs yesterday...

And some of the stuff being said in it cracked us up much we were inspired to create this t-shirt design...

>>>YOU CAN BUY IT HERE!!!

Black, White & Red

2011-08-29T16:47:00.003+12:00

A little while ago we created something called "Black, White & Red" which is intended to be entertainment for infants. It's widely known that infants as young as a couple of weeks old respond well to high contrast colours, specifically, Black, white and reds. So when my son, Cohen was born I went searching for something that he would respond to but that my 3 year old daughter would also get some sort of entertainment value out of... I couldn't find anything like that. There were plenty of black and white "showreel" type animated clips but nothing that had character and enough cartoony-ness to keep me happy. So we saw a gap and decided to fill it... These are what we have created so far.

If you know any proud new parents, please pass this on to them and we'd love to hear some feedback.

Lance Loves to Draw...

2011-08-24T15:56:00.003+12:00

Sorry for the slack updates here on the blog, things have been pretty busy here at Muk HQ the last couple of months, making things and pitching ideas around, some of which you'll get to see here soon but in the mean time check out the last of the "How To Draw's" we made earlier this year. What Now loves them and we love Lance so there will no doubt be more of these next year!

FINALLY!

2011-07-04T15:06:00.014+12:00

So about 2 months ago now we took part in a short film competition that takes place in New Zealand every year. It's called 48Hours and basically, like the names suggests, gives you 48 hours to make a short film.

So all the teams gather on the Friday night and are given a genre and a bunch of elements that they must include in their film and all of which change every year, we got the following:

Genre: Quest
Character: Bobby Young - an ex-bully
Line of dialog: "What have you got?"
Prop: Bent piece of wire
Technical: Freeze frame ending

Quest was an unexpected, but pleasant, surprise. Although... it did play a huge part in making what we had always hoped would be no more than a 3 minute film... in to a 6min epic.

It was a super tough weekend for us... our "slightly ambitious" idea had us awake for 60+ hours once all was said and done... There were moments during the weekend that had the 3 of us doubting our film and also questioning whether we would actually finish it... but we did and we're extremely proud of it and super proud of our 3rd place and "best animated film" wins in the grand final

So, here it is...

And here's us with our bronze "Apee" trophy...

One of the best things about the competition is the fact, if all goes well, you end up with a film, characters and story you would never have thought of otherwise, and also something that can exist outside of the competition. We're really keen now to see what interest our film gets and what we do with the characters and world we created on that crazy blur of a weekend!

UPDATE >>> here's an interview Alex and Ryan did on U Live about the competition and making cartoons...

Onwards and UPWARDS!

2011-06-22T13:59:00.010+12:00

Well colour us CHUFFED! The National Grand Finalists were just announced for the 2011 v48hours and low and behold our film is right there amongst our mates in the finals. Considering how proud we are with our effort over that 48Hour weekend and how stoked we are with the finished short... we must say we're pretty bloody thrilled that to top it off, we were "hand picked" by Sir Peter Jackson himself...

Here's a little vid we filmed in the last minutes leading up to the announcement of the finalists...

So the Grand Final is next weekend, July 2nd, no doubt we'll experience a whole new level of nerves but we are truely stoked to be there with the best films out over over 800 teams that entered!

Auckland Finals!

2011-06-17T10:18:00.010+12:00

So a couple of nights ago we had the City finals for the V48Hours and to our surprise we walked away with "Runner Up" and "Best Animated Film" for our short, Meanie Pants... Considering the caliber of films on the night we were honored to get anything.

Each team that enters the comp has to make a 30 sec intro to their film, we thought it'd be fun to try something a little out of the ordinary (no surprises there), perhaps we went a little over the top on this one but it was a fun experiment all the same...

We can't post the full film just yet (have to wait and see if we get in to the grand finals) so we've quickly thrown together a teaser trailer to tide you over... and we really wanted to have a go at making a trailer, so it was a good excuse.

AUCKLAND FINALS AHOY-HOY!

2011-06-07T11:51:00.009+12:00

Well the wait is over, after winning 'Audience Favourite' in our heat we now know we're in the Auckland City finals for the 2011 V48Hours! As you'd imagine we're pretty excited and to make the top 13 out of 270 teams in our city is pretty awesome and to make things even more exciting (read: nerve wracking!) we're in there with a bunch of sweet film makers and some good buddies so it should be a good night! As always, we don't do things in halves and thought it'd be fun to throw together an "official" movie poster for our short...

And we've also cut together some of the footage we filmed of us making the film over the weekend, it's part behind the scenes part sleep deprivation experiment, so enjoy...

If you're in Auckland and want to come along you can grab tickets HERE!

COMING SOON...

2011-05-26T12:24:00.005+12:00

I thought this would be fun to throw together, might do a few more too...

Done and dusted!

2011-05-24T14:41:00.003+12:00

Well we did it! We actually completed another 48hour short film, it was bloody hard, way more than the last time we entered the comp in 2007, and we didn't sleep for roughly about 60 hours when it was all said and done but we've come out the other end with a 6 minute, fully animated short that we're pretty proud of, at least it makes sense to us, we just have to wait and see what the judges think.

We're not allowed to post the film online until the competition is over but we'll be posting bits and pieces along the way, if you're on Facebook check out some of the photos we took over the weekend...

Makin' a short in 48 Hours!

2011-05-20T08:41:00.007+12:00

So this weekend we're taking part in the 48Hours, where teams of filmakers have to make a short film in just, you guessed it, 48 hours. We actually competed in 2007 and made it all the way to the 'National Finals', the first time for an animated film.

We had a bunch of fun but haven't really had the time to do it again since but we thought this year would be a good time to give it another go. So it kicks off tonight where we'll get our genre given to us, as well as a random prop, character and line of dialogue that each team has to use in their films!

Wish us luck! Here's the film we made in 2007...

Mister Rabbit!

2011-05-11T11:07:00.011+12:00

Earlier this year we were lucky enough to start up a friendship with, Chris Ballew who you may know as the lead singer of the band, Presidents of the United States of America. We found out Chris had a side project called, Caspar Babypants which, to put it simply, is well written music for children... kids music that doesn't drive you insane ;) As a parent myself (Ryan), it's quite a rare find.

So anyway, it seemed only natural we team up and make something super cool for his legions of young (and old) fans. Chris has an awesome dedication to creating music for kids that allows them to follow easily and engage on many levels... so our video had to reflect that. One of the best parts of making this video was the level of trust Chris put in us, so we were allowed to go away with complete creative freedom and create the following simple and sweet music video for his best selling kids song, Mister Rabbit.

All the Caspar Babypants albums are available on Chris' website

More Drawin'...

2011-05-04T14:33:00.003+12:00

Here's a couple more shorts featuring your favourite happy-go-lucky USB device, Lance...

HAPPY EASTER!

2011-04-23T17:36:00.006+12:00

For a few years now we've wanted to put together a little Easter short, similar to our Christmas ones, and we finally found the time over the last couple of days. We also wanted to try something a little different for this one. Alex designed the background and made it up in Flash as usual, we then printed out each layer of the hills etc on a separate piece of paper and constructed a mini set...

We then had Ryan ad lib a bunch of dialogue and we cut together the stuff we liked and then played it back "live" while we filmed the set with our Flip HD, Ryan provided the table shakes at the start with a few swift uppercuts to the table as well as the animation and Tim, once again, worked his magic in After Effects. So without further ado, here's our new mate.. Doofy Bunny!

Our plan is to cut together a little "behind the scenes" vid of us making this so stay tuned to the blog!

Draw Pirates!

2011-04-18T14:32:00.003+12:00

The 2nd new episode of our 'How To Draw' series sees Lance talking you through drawing a very particular type of pirate, whom you may recognise from his "day job" in Sparkle Friends...

Mukpuddy + Rapper + Graffiti Artist = GREATEST MUSIC VIDEO EVER!

2011-04-01T15:36:00.016+13:00

Well maybe not ever EVER, but this was a really fun project to work on for sure! Our buddy and world famous graffitti artist and music video director Askew One came to us earlier this year wanting to collaborate on a music video, we're always keen for a "team up" and jumped at the chance and just hoped it was gonna be for a cool song and artist. He then played us the track by local NZ rapper PNC and we jumped for joy, not only was it a catchy tune and a song that would suit animation perfectly, we're also fans of PNC!

We all sat around the table and came up with a whole bunch of random ideas, some made it in, some didn't, but it was a fun process and cool to be involved in the shoot and every other step along the way... a true collaborative effort and we hope to work with Askew again sometime soon!

A special mention has to go to Tim and his magical dainty fingers which he used to great effect when putting all the shots through After Effects. Now we will allow you to watch it now...

Here's some process work...

Here's a "Behind The Scenes" clip we put together as well...

Ladies Love Lance!

2011-03-31T17:17:00.003+13:00

The 5 "How To Draw The Sparkle Friends' shorts we made last year were such a hit down at What Now they commissioned us to make 10 new ones. We jumped at the chance because it turns out Lance is a pretty easy character to animate and one that's easy for Ryan to ad-lib in, you may even notice Lance has gotten a lot more "sarky" in these new ones, which we thought was a pretty funny attribute to give him. So we've been working away on them for a while now and will post them online as they air on tv down here in NZ, here's the first short for your viewing pleasure... if you ever wanted to know how to draw a bipedal cow turn your eyeballs to this...

Mukpuddy does Strange Kid...

2011-03-25T15:53:00.009+13:00

Hey check this out, The Strange Kids Club have just posted up an interview they did with us. It's a rad site all about the cool stuff we loved when we were kids and more.... CHECK IT OUT!!!

We were also asked to contribute some art to a book they're putting together. 'The Strange Kid Anthology' features over 20 indie artists who have contributed both pin-ups and short comics featuring their blue-pompadoured mascot...

We decided on a comic, and here it is...

Ryan does silly voices!

2011-03-10T14:42:00.000+13:00

Just recording some voices at the studio for our latest 'Mukaroons' skit...

Tim's made a game!

2011-02-28T14:38:00.004+13:00

I was doing some little tests, and they eventually mutated into a game I've called, Tedium - The Generic Space Survival Game!

Download it for pc from here

Take it to the Street!

2011-02-17T13:05:00.002+13:00

This is a silly idea we've had for a while, but we've always kept it on the "back burner" as we were never too sure what to do with it. So, when we were discussing ideas for the 2nd "Mukaroon" skit, this idea seemed like a perfect fit.

Ok, I've been mysterious enough....here it is.

BUY MY ART!

2011-02-02T11:34:00.004+13:00

Hey all just a quick post to let ya know I've set up an Etsy page where I'll be selling my artwork when I can!!!

Mukaroons: Gorillas

2011-01-20T14:47:00.005+13:00

Well if it isn't 2011... or as some movies would have us believe... "The Future".

So we thought we'd kick off the year with a new series of skits. We've called this series, "Mukaroons" partly because it has the "Muk" bit in the title... but mainly because it's a hilarious word to say out loud.

Here's our first skit

That's my (Ryan's) 3 year old daughter, Ilah singing. She started making up a song while playing with her toys so I quickly grabbed our camera and filmed her... which in turn inspired this first skit. Thanks Ilah

*UPDATE*

Here's Ilah watching herself in the cartoon for the first time...

2010 DONE & DUSTED!

2010-12-18T17:15:00.005+13:00

So that's Mukpuddy done for 2010 huh? That was quick! What started off as a slightly rocky year (thanks recession) quickly turned in to, easily, our most productive year to date... and we're very tired because of it, but it's a good tired... if that exists?

2010 saw us create a ton of new properties including Lanky Lampton, Roodie Toodie and Take Out (Thanks Studio 2 Live) which ended up garnering enough attention to get us a presence at Mipcom which has already sparked a few relationships that could make for a very interesting 2011 and beyond.

We also created the Star Wars inspired shorts Cuppa Jawa and R2 & Derek, both of which we plan to create a lot more of... Star Wars is in our blood.. sue us (no please don't, George). And it wouldn't have been another year at Mukpuddy without a visit to the Sparkle Friends universe, this time creating a new spin-off series, What's a Gungi Good For?, How to Draw the Sparkle Friends and the recently aired 2 part special Sparkle Friends: Next Level.

On top of all that we also helped out on the more adult skewed comedy series WANNA-BEn creating a theme, titles and animated segments. Launched our online "behind the scenes" series Around the Office with the Muks, had a bit of fun with Rambo and farted around with our new green screen and puppets... good times! All of this of course amongst our more corporate gigs that help keep the machine running, stuff that usually goes unseen by our followers like Barx, Moonblooms and Library Kids Clubs.

2011 is already shaping up to be a goodie but what excites us the most is continuing to work in an environment that oozes creativity, the fact that we can take something from conception to completion (usually within days) under one roof makes us super proud to work at Mukpuddy and lets us see that the company we envisioned, oh so many years ago, is a very real thing. To all those out there that continue to support us and constantly share their kind words... Huge thanks to you! Here's hoping you have the Merriest of Christmases!

We'll leave you with some Christmas messages from our animated pals, Drunk Santa and Lanky. Take care and we'll see you back here in 2011!

WHO NEEDS ANOTHER CUP?

2010-12-09T14:15:00.005+13:00

At the start of this year we made a little skit called "Cuppa Jawa" it was a whole heap of fun so we just had to do another one before 2010 came to an end....... Plus Alex has quite the knack for Mukpuddifying Star Wars characters....so we can't let that go to waste.

Ryan lost his voice after this years Armageddon Expo, so we had to capitalise on his new found "huskiness" and we quickly recorded a brand new skit .....thus "Cuppa Jawa 2" was born.

Tim made this look super special with a little "After Effecting" and it's also our first true HD short so you can crank this sucka all the way up to 1080p!

A big thanks also to Damien Caine who helped Tim come up with an original piece of Star Wars-esque music.

And here it is

If you like the shorts buy the shirts!!!!

LET'S GET GRODIE!

2010-11-20T09:46:00.010+13:00

Well... I guess at this stage it would be silly of us to say (again) that Sparkle Friends has come to an end. Looking back it seems we've "officially" announced "the end" at least 2 times. So even though, for now, it seems Sparkle Friends will end with it's 42nd episode...who knows what the future may bring. If anything Sparkle Friends has been an amazing training ground, not only in fast turnaround animation but in short form story telling, quick fire gags and rapid character development. We always tried to fit so much in to each episodes 3-4min duration....I guess we considered every episode our chance to make a mini-movie.......the problem was we'd have to cram that movie in to a trailer length short.....tricky.....but like I said, an amazing training ground for future projects.

Thanks to everyone who have had amazing things to say about Sparkle Friends over the years, it's really meant a whole lot to us.

Anyway, this episode was quite the monster resulting in the longest Sparkle Friends episode to date. As with most Sparkle Friends episodes - coming up with a new villain was the most fun and the musically inclined, Grodie Starlight was definitely the most fun to date.

So without further a doo doo.....here's Sparkle Friends: Next Level Part II

Here's some development stuff too, it was fun trying to come up with Grodie's design, trying to capture a 80s glam rockstar! In the end I went with a costume from one of my favourite 80s rockstars...

Grodies minions were pretty fun to design too, I thought it's be cool to have a throw back to some of the goblins in The Labyrinth, it also worked quite well since we saw them as kind of being like bikers or Grodies road crew when he was on tour...

If we had more money and time we would've we originally thought it'd be cool to do Emilio in CG, so we decided to make him a box shape to make it easier, maybe we can do it next time (if there is a next time!)...

So much room for activities!!!

2010-11-17T09:55:00.007+13:00

This is an activity page we made especially for Armageddon a few weeks back, we thought it'd be cool to hand these out to kids for free, just a little something something to take away with them for free! The idea actually started as an entire 'Lanky Lampton Activity Book' but, again, like many Mukpuddy ideas was just a little too ambitious and we ran out of time. We really wanna do the book for next year, but in the mean time print this sucker out and have a play...

Making Muk Stuff...

2010-11-15T12:44:00.003+13:00

So here's another little insight into the happenings of Muk HQ, we actually just got ourselves a Flip HD so were just testing it out but we'll be using it to do more of these thingys...

This is also pretty cool, Amid over at Cartoon Brew posted (briefly) about the above clip, so thanks a bunch for that dude, we really appreciate any exposure we can get, especially on a popular site like CB!

Surprise... It was all lies!

2010-11-09T15:53:00.008+13:00

So we pretty much lied about not doing any more Sparkle Friends episodes, What Now (the local kids show Sparkle Friends is made for) got a new female presenter part way through this year and they wanted to introduce her to "the kids" via the magic of animation. So 2 new episodes were born, yip it's an epic 2 parter, introducing the new Sparkle Friend, Gem and yet another villain voiced by Ryan. We tried really hard to make these look pretty and Tim did a bang up job putting his After Effects fingers to work! It was a mountain of work, yet again, but might I say both episodes look bloody swank for being made by 3 blokes in just a few weeks...

Drawings by Alexander, Aged 30...

Draw Da Gungi!

2010-11-05T11:28:00.002+13:00

WANNA BEn Titles...

2010-11-04T08:57:00.004+13:00

We finally posted the opening titles we animated for the new show we're working on. Ben and his team are awesome to work with so we hope they get picked up for a second season so we can keep working with them...

Drawing A Monkey...

2010-10-31T19:35:00.003+13:00

Mukpuddy @ Armageddon

2010-10-28T08:12:00.005+13:00

Well the long weekend is over and with it so is the very fun but very exhausting Armageddon. It was a real blast to see kids of all ages recognise our work and buy our merch! We also got a few potential jobs out of it so that's always a plus. We'll be looking to do it all again next year with some brand new ideas for our stand so stay tuned!!

Here's us setting up our stand on the Friday morning...

And Ryan trying to get more kids to come to the Mukpuddy stand by hi-jacking the PA system...

And some pics...

Muk-A-Geddon!

2010-10-20T14:33:00.010+13:00

So 2010, amongst other things, will celebrate Mukpuddys first appearance in 4 years at Aucklands Armageddon Expo. Armageddon is kinda like the San Diego Comic Con but on a New Zealand scale... so pretty small, but it's definitely grown since our first few times there 6 or so years ago.

We're actually pretty excited about it too as we haven't had a booth since we actually got good at making cartoons, so it's gonna be interesting to see what reaction we get from peeps to our work, from Sparkle Friends to Lanky Lampton, and everything else in between!

We've been planning our booth for a while so hopefully it's gonna look cool and we'll be selling badges, stickers, comics, dvds and a few shirts. You'll even be able to get your photo taken with Lanky Lampton himself (see below)...

Thought we'd post this again too, we made it earlier this year for the organiser of Armageddon to promo the event...

So if you're in the Auckland area definitely come check out the event and come by our booth (#99) and say hi!

Draw Tu!

2010-10-15T22:57:00.001+13:00

Here's our second short in this series...

How To Draw Charles...

2010-10-06T14:21:00.003+13:00

If you've ever wondered how to draw The Sparkle Friends then let Lance be your guide to artistic glory. We made these earlier this year and weren't sure about them until the addition of the host Lance, who was almost completely ad-libbed by Ryan in the voice booth... fun times!

Wanna-Ben!

2010-09-29T21:35:00.003+13:00

So as well as being flat out making 2 new episodes of Sparkle Friends we've also been creating titles and episode animation for a new tv show here in New Zealand called 'Wanna Ben'.

Ben and his crew are a swell bunch of chaps, we actually made 'The Stallion' pilot with them last year which also lead to us briefly working with them on their last show 'Pulp Sport'. We've still got a long way to go on this project but it's been fun making animation that will be seen in "prime time"!

Condiment War!

2010-09-17T19:55:00.003+12:00

So here's our last skit in the 'Take Our' series and the last work we did for 'Studio2 Live', they were really cool to us this year and let us do whatever we wanted which was really refreshing. It made for a awesome experience all around and we can't thank them enough for that! We were looking forward to expanding our relationship with them next year but, unfortunately, they've been cancelled, which, in our minds, is a huge loss for New Zealand television and all kiwi kids! RIP Studio2 Live!

We're currently figuring out a way to keep these shorts alive so hopefully, all going to plan there will be more of Lanky Lampton and his mates on tv screens next year!

PWND!

2010-09-08T14:05:00.002+12:00

Eggs are cute... FACT!

2010-09-03T13:29:00.002+12:00

This short marks the debut of Ryan's daughter Ilah (2 years old) in a Mukpuddy cartoon, it wont be the last time either...

Good For Nuttin'...

2010-09-01T07:52:00.003+12:00

Thought we'd post the rest of these "What's A Gungi Good For" skits we made earlier this year, so yeah we created a spin-off skit series that features some of our favourite special guest characters from the last 40 episodes of Sparkle Friends, each finding interesting ways to use Gungi...

More Mukpuddy Malarky...

2010-08-26T19:47:00.000+12:00

Bananas and Fountains...

2010-08-23T13:06:00.004+12:00

A combo that never fails!

Here's some sketches too...

Ja-Bungee...

2010-08-18T23:07:00.001+12:00

Here's the first short in our last batch of stuff for 'Studio2 Live'...

Double Rambo all the way!

2010-07-30T13:55:00.004+12:00

For those of you who are fans of the wonderfully "enthusiastic" Double Rainbow fella and the Internet sensation clip that he stars in........you might get a sniggle (that's a snicker giggle) out of this...

So yeah, a little different from our usual stuff. We don't normally jump on any Internet "band-wagons" but this idea made us laugh enough to give it an hour of our time. Tim did a wonderful job of putting it all together in After Effects. We now return you to your normal programing!

Food is your friend!

2010-07-26T11:27:00.007+12:00

Here's a sneak peek at our next bunch of shorts for 'Studio2 Live'

This ain't no Beyoncé ditty!

2010-07-23T12:31:00.000+12:00

Thought we'd save this one until the end as it's one of our favs. So it's the end of the run of Roodie Toodie shorts for now but these fellas will be back for sure, we've had so much fun making these and wanna thank all the peeps up at Studio 2 for letting us make them! We have another 5 episodes of another idea coming your way very soon but in the mean time enjoy this lil' golden piece of Ryan ad-libbery...

HOLD THE PHONE... NOW WITH SPECIAL FEATURES>>> We've put the song online as a MP3 so if you wanna use it as a ring tone or something just as cool feel free! (right click to save)

Caught by the fuzz!

2010-07-16T11:52:00.003+12:00

Here's our 2nd to last Roodie Toodie...

The Talented Mr. Ryan...

2010-07-13T20:03:00.003+12:00

We thought it'd be cool to show you guys at peek at how much ad libbing Ryan does in the vocal booth. This is from the last episode of 'Roodie Toodie' where Toodie is doing some impressions, unfortunately we didn't record all of them because the camera ran out of battery...

Auditions can be hell!

2010-07-05T16:42:00.003+12:00

Ryan did all the impressions contained within...

The "REAL" Lanky...

2010-07-01T20:01:00.002+12:00

Thought it'd be cool to post the raw footage from the Lanky Lampton interview that was on Studio2 Live a few weeks backs, so here it is...

Sweet beats!!

2010-06-28T11:17:00.000+12:00

Let the mentalness ensue...

2010-06-21T11:51:00.005+12:00

So here's the first episode of our brand new series of shorts called 'Roodie Toodie', as with Lanky Lampton, the peeps up at Studio2 Live we're making it for just said do what ever you want and this is the result! It's the sort of cartoon we've wanted to make for a while now, just nonsense that makes us laugh!

Pretty much all the dialogue was ad-libbed by Ryan in the voice booth. We think this episode nicely sets up the characters and their relationship...

More to come soon!

Who Framed Lanky Lampton?

2010-06-17T13:47:00.003+12:00

When we pitched the idea of Lanky Lampton to the good folks at Studio2LIVE we also pitched the idea of having Lanky interviewed in studio with the presenters of the show......if he proved popular that is. Well, he did prove popular so we went ahead and did a "live" interview. We wanted the interview to feel natural and "real" so we filmed the entire thing unrehearsed. I (Ryan) sat in as Lanky and answered the questions with no preparation or planning as we really wanted to catch any little stumbles or mistakes that may occur. That sort of stuff can really add realism and charm to this sort of thing.

Once it was all filmed we removed me from the scene and added in the animated Lanky. Keeping the same eye lines and poses so that it felt like the presenters we're really connecting with Lanky.

Here's what went to air last Friday (June 11th)

Lanky Darby!

2010-06-11T20:08:00.005+12:00

Hey folks,

Well so far Lanky Lampton has proved a glorious success......we seem to have found a character that really does appeal to all ages.....and that warms our ear lobes! Right from the offset we were only going to make 5 Lanky Lamptons with the hope that his popularity would dictate whether we make more or not (so at this stage I'm guessing this isn't the last you'll see of him). So we knew we wanted the 5th episode to be a real hum-dinger......a real frown upside downer. We had a long list of "good ideas" Lanky could talk about, but we knew it had to be a little more obscure.....so what's more obscure than Rhys Darby! So we sent off a message to the man himself and thankfully he loved the idea and was on board immediately.

So here's the finished episode, it was super fun to make and Rhys was a great guy to work with. Hope you enjoy.

Oh and if you're wondering, yes.... that is a real beard Alex has upon his face (photo below). The word you're looking for is.....lush! When he shaves it off he'll be donating it to the "Restore Billy Crystal's Hair Foundation" or the RBCHF as it's commonly known.

iMuks!

2010-06-11T08:18:00.004+12:00

Check this out, we have no idea what the game is actually like but we were asked recently to design some elements for a soccer game for German game developers 'Blacksmith', and now you can buy it... SPEND MONEY!

Us being dicks...

2010-06-09T15:52:00.003+12:00

What's coming next...

2010-06-05T12:42:00.001+12:00

Here's a peak at another new cartoon we are currently making...

Lanky and bees...

2010-05-25T12:32:00.003+12:00

This can't possibly go bad...

Drink that bubbles...

2010-05-17T17:54:00.001+12:00

What a good idea!

Lanky explains Dogs...

2010-05-07T17:00:00.001+12:00

A NEW MUKPUDDY CARTOON!

2010-05-03T16:56:00.007+12:00

So when one cartoon door closes another cartoon door opens......and behind this new cartoon door is Lanky Lampton. I said "cartoon door" 3 times in one sentence......now it just sounds weird.

Anyhoo, below is the first episode of our brand new series of cartoon shorts called "Lanky Lampton: A Silly Idea". It's an idea we pitched to NZ after school kids show "Studio 2 Live". They loved the idea and gave us the green light for a bunch. So with complete creative freedom comes complete creative nuttyness. .....enjoy.

Everybody loves a spin-off...

2010-04-27T20:31:00.008+12:00

except for that show 'Joey'.......he's nothing without Chandler.

Anyhoo, as we mentioned in a previous post, last year was the end of the line for the Sparkle Friends. After 40 episodes it definitely felt like it had come to a natural end and it was time to move on. We love what we've created and are extremely proud of the progress we made while working on the show, but we'll take that experience and apply it to new projects.

However... Over the 3 years of making Sparkle Friends we came up with far too many fun secondary characters to just throw to the wayside and felt they needed a bit more screen time. So with the inclusion of Sparkle Friends star, Gungi.....we created a spin-off skit series that features some of our favourite special guest characters from the last 40 episodes, each finding interesting ways to use Gungi.

So enough blabbing from me, here's the very first "What's a Gungi Good For?"

Ryan

p.s a big thanks to musical genius Ben Sinclair who did a great job of making my mediocre jingle singery sound pretty rad!

A New Thing...

2010-04-21T23:02:00.005+12:00

Here's a sneak-peek at our new cartoon, all shall be revealed very soon...

End Of An Era...

2010-04-01T15:19:00.021+13:00

We didn't know it at the time of making these, but these 2 episodes (an "epic" 2-parter) might be the last Sparkle Friends episodes in this format... EVER!

The original plan with these was to run a competition where kids would draw themselves as a Sparkle Friend and the 2 winning entries would appear in the episode which was going to be in 3D and kids would grab their glasses from a local shopping center. Well like a lot of things down here in little ol' New Zealand, it proved a little to ambitious, and the 3D elements were dropped because of time constraints... but, good gracious, that would've been cool!

However the comp still ran though and we got to see a bunch of really cool entries and the 2 kids, Olivia and Wallice, do appear in the episode, just in case you were wondering who those randoms were! Episode 40 also features the return of one of our favorite "elements" from Series 1 (that's a long time ago, if you're counting).

Here's the 2 winning entries...

As for the future of Sparkle Friends, it's a little uncertain at this stage but we are making some short skits involving Gungi at the moment. They've have been a bunch of fun to make and will be hitting the net very soon!

Nothing but the tooth!

2010-02-23T10:31:00.008+13:00

Here's a new Sparkle Friends episode that's full of lovely weirdness. Sometimes we look back at an episode and are amazed by the chain reaction that occurred between us which resulted in the finished episode....I don't want to give anything away from this episode, but I will say that the ideas that ended up in the episode lent themselves perfectly to one of our favourite Sparkle Friends end gags ever.

Once again a big thanks to Jocelyn Christian who did a wonderful job as the voice of the Toothfairy.

Here's some design work, twas fun designing these two ladies...

Armageddon a cup of water!

2010-02-18T15:50:00.005+13:00

Look who's here......it's you!

Enough of that, lets get to the real story. Soooo, every year something called the Armageddon Expo is held throughout NZ (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin) and it's kind of a comic-con style geeky extravaganza of all things comics, movies, TV and anime.

Mukpuddy first had a stand at Armageddon in 2003 and it definitely helped in getting our name out and about in the industry.

We have had a stand at Armageddon on and off over the last 7 years but we thought this year we would make a grand return to see if the kids who were trying to scab free stuff off us years ago have grown up to be rich and want to give us lots of money to make cartoons.....ahhhhhh.......thems the dreams of crazy folk.

Anyhoo, if all goes well we will be at Auckland Armageddon October 2010 and to help promote it we've created a short viral skit......enjoy or don't enjoy.....that's up to you ;)

A little green...

2010-02-15T16:24:00.011+13:00

A week or so ago we created a permanent green screen in the Mukpuddy studio (our landlords were gracious enough to let us deface a wall!). We thought it would be a nice feature to have on hand whenever we needed to jump in front of a green screen.......as we often do......wah?

Anyhoo, to give the new toy a whirl we grabbed Tim's puppet, Ember, and ad-libbed a bit of puppet tomfoolery. We filmed it with an old digital camera (which is all we had on hand that day) then took the footage in to After Effects and threw in some BG elements we already had made up etc, and this is what we produced.

It's a tad rough, but it's only a test. We have plans for some more........next time we might try proper lighting as this test had none. Hopefully they'll only get better.

Stay tuned.

WHAT TIME IS IT?

2010-02-09T11:24:00.009+13:00

...ADVENTURE TIME!!!!!!! Here's my contribution to the up and coming tribute book! Thanks to Chogrin for asking me to be a part of it...

-Alex

Lets Get Girly!

2010-02-04T12:12:00.005+13:00

A Sparkle Friends episode with a message....get outta here. Don't worry......it's still full of random weirdness, but we thought it would be nice to tackle an issue that kinda bugs us, growing up.

This episode also features a TV commercial parody that Jeremy had been dreaming about for some time......so like we always do, found a way to slip it into Sparkle Friends. See you if you can spot it.......it the one that looks like a TV commercial parody.....silly.

ALSO>>> Check out the brand new Mukpuddy Animation website and let us know what ya think!!!

Donut look here!

2010-02-02T14:33:00.014+13:00

For over a year now we've done some work (on and off) for a company called Donutology. They specialise in Donut related merchandise, mobile phone jewelry, t-shirts, rings etc

We've designed a bunch of characters for their merchandise, mainly t-shirts and posters (see above), but at the end of last year we pitched the idea of donut related skits to help promote Donutology in a viral form. The idea was well received and we knocked out 4 skits based on the "bad uses for a donut" theme.

Mukpuddy does Star Wars...

2010-01-20T21:01:00.004+13:00

Here's an idea we've had for a while and thought we'd put it together to get the creative juices flowing as we start to get into the year...

Luck Of The Irish...

2010-01-13T10:37:00.009+13:00

This episode was a pretty fun one to come up with, last year we met an Irish dude that boasted he never forgot a name but kept getting ours slightly wrong, we thought it was hilarious and wanted to put it into a cartoon, and here it is...

And some process work...

Wild Things Are Here....

2009-12-19T19:09:00.007+13:00

I ‘ve been visiting the blog Terrible Yellow Eyes for a while now and love the idea to bits! I asked Cory if he’d be keen for me to contribute and said he loved my stuff so here’s what I put together, it’s really cool to be involved in such a cool project…

-Alex

Sparkle Friends Ep35: Spooky Sunday

2009-12-16T17:51:00.004+13:00

This was an interesting episode of Sparkle Friends to make as, writing, directing and animation aside, it sort of relied heavily on spot-on performances from the lead Sparkle Friends voice cast to make the joke really work. I'm happy to say I think the real Serena and Charlie absolutely nailed it.

Merry Saint Nick...

2009-12-08T14:12:00.002+13:00

He's back for his 3rd year in a row! Will he ever stop drinking the booze? You'll have to wait until next year to find out...

ROADBLOCK!

2009-12-01T14:13:00.005+13:00

We posted a sneak peek at this episode earlier this year and got a really positive reaction to it, so we've been really wanting to get the whole episode out there! So without further ado we present the greatest 80's star that never was.... Roadblock!!!

Our older post also has some sketches and a clip of our buddy Jarrod recording Roadblock's voice!

BRINGING SPARKLE BACK!

2009-11-19T10:19:00.012+13:00

Hey there, long time no Sparkle Friends!

As you may (or may not) know Sparkle Friends now plays on Australia's ABC, so to give the nice folks over there a decent head start on episodes 31-40 we held off putting the episodes online. But enough time has passed now so we thought we'd finally unleash the newest episodes on the world wide web.

I'm super happy with how the 4th series turned out. With some super crisp writing and editing from Jeremy, cool new character and bg designs from Alex and of course the smooth animation stylings of myself and Tim, this definitely feels like the best series yet. But I'm biased.....sue me.

We really enjoyed making the "Super Tu" episode in the 3rd series of Sparkle Friends so we thought it was only fitting to kick off series 4 with a new "Super Tu" adventure. Jeremy then had the idea to do a Super Tu trilogy.....so we did. Because we decided to bring back all of the major Sparkle Friends villains I got the chance to do a whole heap of voices, I think in total (including the Seagull and the theme park attendant) I did 9 characters over the trilogy, I may have missed some, but who's counting.......probably my Mum.

I'll stop writing now and let you watch all 3 Super Tu episodes.

- Ryan

HE'S NOT A CAT!!

2009-10-27T15:36:00.045+13:00

Last year our friends at Nickelodeon International asked us to make a cartoon for a project they called Open Mic - it was basically a chance for a group of studios to strut their stuff and make cartoon shorts with minimal studio interference. The only condition was that the cartoon must be driven by a 'star character'...

Rewind 10 years to the very early beginnings of Mukpuddy, and a Secret Agent Lemur by the name of Dirk Banzai. Cue hideous 10 year old drawings...

Dirk was the first ever Mukpuddy character, and has been through several incarnations over his 10 years. He starred in a couple of webisodes (back when that seemed like a potential way to make money) and even had his own comic for a short time. We've always thought he had star potential, and thought Open Mic might be a good time to get him out of moth balls and give him a revamp.

The 'secret agent' moniker was dropped, and Dirk became more of a kid who creates drama and intrigue wherever he goes, even when none actually exists. Naturally villains assume Dirk is their nemesis and try to destroy him, but Dirk finds it all quite fun and amusing!

We had a few attempts at trying to find a voice for Dirk, but ended up seeking out the original Dirk - our good friend Matt Kelly. Matt had slipped off the Mukpuddy radar for a few years, but turned out to be irreplaceable. Take that Beyonce!

We also enlisted our friend Richard Simpson as the voice of Dirk's nemesis, The Toyminator.

And Jeremy wrote the theme song (as he often does) with the help of our new-found musical genius Ben Sinclair. It was the first time we worked with Ben, but we doubt we'll ever make anything without him again.

Anyway, it turned out it wasn't really what Nickelodeon were after, but we enjoyed making the short and are grateful for the opportunity. Let's see what you think of it... go on... watch it!

Here's some production work...

Horsing around!

2009-09-25T14:44:00.025+12:00

We made a pilot! No silly... not a man who flies planes. A pilot is another name for the first episode of a TV show. Chuckle.

About a year ago our buddies Jamie & Ben (better known in New Zealand as 'Bill & Ben', the creators of the award winning comedy show Pulp Sport) approached us with an idea for a couple of characters called Edward the Horse and Warren the Rabbit.

We took their idea, fed it into the Mukpuddy Cartoon Making Machine, and baked it on high for several months. This is what came out the other side.

We think it's our best work yet, and are particularly proud that we made a NZ-flavoured cartoon that doesn't involve a kiwi. Some of the references may be a little too 'local' for our overseas viewers, but hopefully that will make it seem 'exotic'.

As usual, Alex's pencil went into overdrive. Here's some early development stuff for Ed and Warren...

Secondary character development...

Here's some layouts from the pilot...

And some backgrounds...

Let us know if you'd like to see more!

Jeremy

Didney Lan!

2009-09-16T21:26:00.007+12:00

Being obsessed with everything Disney as a kid I don't think there's anywhere more inspiring to be than Disneyland, and these little buggers are a direct result of my recent trip there with my wife. We also visited Comic Con where our buddy Martin Hsu convinced me to do more paintings on wood, ta daaa...

-Alex

Studio 2 Titles!

2009-09-02T11:59:00.005+12:00

Earlier this year a local kids show called Studio 2 got us to make their new titles, we incorporated all the characters the presenters play within the show and we think they turned out pretty sweet...

Muk TV!

2009-08-20T21:03:00.005+12:00

If you didn't catch it last year, the story 20/20 did on us is finally up on Youtube...

Here's something else we've never posted here before, a few years ago we were asked to be on a local kids show here in NZ and talk about making cartoons. It was our first time on telly and we were crapping in our nappies...

We're still alive!

2009-08-08T11:19:00.014+12:00

Apologies for the lack of posts recently, things have been crazy busy here at Muk HQ! After an exhausting 6 months we finished up our 4th series of Sparkle Friends, which we are very happy with and is some of our best stuff to date me thinks, we've now gone onto a "super secret" project we can't say much about at this stage but if it all goes to plan will lead to bigger and better things. Hopefully we can show you something soon! We've also been doing some "bread and butter" freelance type jobbies, so at the moment our brains feel a little melty!
We've held off posting anything else from the new Sparkle Friends episodes because we thought it might improve our chances of selling it overseas, so if you run a tv station and have moolah... email us! But we might post a few gags up soon, so stay tuned!

In the mean time I thought I'd post some stuff to whet your whistle,. I've just come back from an awesome trip to The States with my wife and this is the cover of a dvd I was handing out at Comic Con with some of Mukpuddy's Greatest Hits on it...

And a shirt I wanted to make up for comic con but ran out of time...

And here's something I was mucking around with a while back, I made up some hand drawn badges to sell at Kraftbomb. They were pretty fun to make so wanna do some more...

-Alex

Mukpudafix!

2009-06-17T08:29:00.006+12:00

I recently did a couple of paintings of 2 of my favourite comic characters growing up, the stories always seemed a little over my head when I was real young but I absolutely loved the artwork!!

They're acrylic on canvas (Obelix- 5"x7", Asterix - 6"x6") and are for sale if anybody is interested! $45 US each including postage (via paypal).

-Alex

Mukpuddy in the Amazon...

2009-06-11T20:27:00.005+12:00

Here's something cool, we just found out both the books we have for sale over at Lulu are now available on Amazon. They're a few years old now but we're still pretty happy with them. 'Sometimes' was our first go at our very own kids book, it's a simple little story told from the point of view of a young boy! And the other is the very first volume of the Mukpuddy Sketchbook, full of tonnes of stuff from our productions over the years!
They're cheap as chips so CHECK EM OUT!!!!

My name is... ROADBLOCK!

2009-05-22T10:30:00.009+12:00

In this week's episode of Sparkle Friends we introduce a new character called Roadblock. Although he's not really new - he's been around for about 13 years...

Back in the mid 1990's I worked in a record store with my good friend Jarrod Wright. We'd amuse ourselves by pretending to be Roadblock - a white guy who thinks he's black and never quite gets the tough guy catchphrases right.
We always intended to use Roadblock as a character in something, but it never quite happened... UNTIL NOW! Ta daaaaa!

I thought it would be fun to put him in Sparkle Friends, and it seemed only right to get Jarrod to do the voice (he was always better at it than me)

As usual Xander did a sweet character design, and you can ch-ch-check his process work below.

Obviously Roadblock's 'look' is inspired by a certain Mr, although we think this will just be ONE of Roadblock's many looks. We already have plans to bring him back, so hopefully y'all like him as much as we do.

Check out the full episode on What Now this Sunday morning between 830-9, TV2!

Jeremy

Sneaky Peeky!

2009-04-27T15:04:00.003+12:00

Sparkle Friends Series 4 (or Season 4 if you live in the US of A) begins in NZ this Sunday, and to celebrate we’re giving you a sneak peak! You lucky monkeys!

We thought we'd kick this series off with a trilogy of Super Tu episodes, entitled SUPER TU 2!

This episode was particularly fun to make because it features one of our favourite things – A SUPER VILLAIN TEAM UP! All of the best villains from Sparkle Friends series 2 and 3 are back – and so are their catchphrases!

This scene also features the versatile vocal talents of our very own Ryan Cooper, who provides every voice in this scene, apart from one.

Can you count how many voices he does?

I can.

7.

Jeremy

"Tooning" round the office!

2009-04-24T16:06:00.003+12:00

It's like Who Framed Roger Rabbit but without Christopher Lloyd...

Big thanks to Jeremy's bro, Chris, for taking the photo!

They're baaaaaaaack!

2009-04-17T11:56:00.004+12:00

As you may know, we're currently underway on the 4th series of 'Sparkle Friends'. We've got about another 8 weeks of production to go. The first new episode is due to air on NZ TV May 3rd but for now we have a little promo to wet your whistle!

We're really happy with the way this series is turning out. As far as gags and story go, we're pretty pleased with what we manage to squeeze into our oh so quick 3 minutes 30 seconds.

Donatello does machines (That's a fact, Jack!)

2009-03-20T23:33:00.010+13:00

Here's my latest paintings, turned out a little different than my sketches but I'm still pretty happy with 'em!! They are acrylic on 6x6 canvas and for sale if anybody in interested! - Alex

A little while back I also asked my "blog buddy" Johnny Yanok to do a drawing of Patrick Starfish I wanted to get tattooed on the back of my neck, here's the result...

Thanks dude, I love the drawing and think it turned out pretty cool thanks to the tattooing skills of my awesome wife Karla!!!

Drama Queen

2009-02-14T10:57:00.007+13:00

My good friend Mikee asked us to make a 'dark, animated, jack the ripper-style' video for his band Autozamm, and this is what we came up with.

You may be thinking that it looks a bit different to our usual stuff, and you'd be right. Our design work usually comes from the highly talented, tattooed hands of Alex - but it seemed like Tim's style was more fitting for the darker tone of this story. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of Tim's style in the future - if he can stop eating his beloved chocolate long enough to draw something...

And as much as we'd like to take all of the credit, a family-sized portion of it belongs to our buddy Andrew Kepple.

Andrew is the man we call when there's too much work and not enough Muks. He animated the majority of this video by himself and did a bang up job too. Virtual high five to you Mr Kepple!

The above version of the video was rated AO (adults only) and could only be played after 930pm, which isn't ideal for a music video. So we toned down a few scenes and sneaked in with a PGR (parental guidance recommended) rating. See if you can spot the difference!

Jeremy

I HAVE THE POWER....

2009-02-08T09:28:00.006+13:00

Here's some more paintings I've just finished. There's a bunch more characters I wanna do from the Masters Of The Universe but there's only so many hours in the day!
As always they're acrylic on canvas! All my paintings are for sale if anybody is interested, $45 US each including postage! -Alex