It’s Pling, the mouse from the recently released comic booklet TanimaL! He turned out much better than I expected actually. They said he’d be a “beanie bag”, so I pictured some sort of baggy unshapely thing, but this is actually quite like the cartoon.
I always dreamed of having 3D merchandise versions of my characters. Maybe not mice. Maybe more kind of action figure characters. But anyhow, this is not a bad start. I hope Abigail – who made the original drawing – is as happy with Pling the Toy as I am.
Here he is with the rest of the family: Mubarak, Dark Dude, The Thumb and Sir Edgar Alan Poe.
I just finished my Bamse animation job for Junior Productions/Fritidsresor. This job was important to me in several ways. I got to animate again, which is always fun, and I got to learn Flash, a piece of software I wanted to learn for a long time. My animations will be used as a backdrop to a live show featuring Bamse, Skutt, Skalman and Vargen (people in suits). The show will launch later this spring, and you’ll see it at Fritidsresor’s Bluevillage charter resorts (like in Gran Canaria and Turkey and the like). Since the show is still Work in Progress, I can’t post any of the animations here, but I’ll share with you the demo I made to get the approval from Junior Productons, Fritidsresor and the Andréasson Brothers (Rune’s sons) to be a Bamse animator.
So, last week I went to Oslo to meet the other people behind the show. We hung out in the studio for a whole day talking about the show, adding sound effects and recording silly background voices. Very relaxed, lots of laughs. I had a great time. Here some blurry mobile phone pics from the event:
We finished the day with a grand meal at restaurant No. 15 in Frogner, one of the posh areas of Oslo. I had reindeer steak (an apology to all the vegetarians out there) and Crème Brulée and Calvados for desert. Good food = happiness!
The Norwegians are funny. Instead of one red man they have TWO at each zebra crossing. Is this an extra precaution so they definately won’t walk too early?
TanimaL, the TL-members’ own comic book should be out by now. It’s published in Swedish and Norwegian and released together with a toy, a beanie bag version of Pling the mouse. I’ll post a photo of beanie bag Pling as soon as I get my hands on one.
Here’s a couple of sample pages they way they looked before being texted:
I learned two important things from doing TanimaL. 1) how to color comic pages professionally (pure CMYK colors, 110% black lines etc.), and 2) always make sure you know who’s got the last say in approving your work…
Now I’m eagerly awaiting the reactions of the TL-members. I hope they don’t hate me too much…
