No sketches lately because I'm in production on Fantasy World, so here's a hippo moving guy from Fantasy World.

Ralph, a character from my next animated series. He's supposed to be a dog, so I hope he looks like a dog.

Two characters from a show I'm developing. I'm hoping I actually get to make it at some point, but we'll see. Freakin' politics, you know?

A character design for a series I'm developing. She's supposed to be a cross between Jessica Rabbit and Judy Jetson. She's a lot different than the cartoon style I'm used to drawing, so I'm not sure how well I'll be able to animate her.

Yup, that's me and the lovely Ariel Lazarus walking the red carpet at the ITVFest in Hollywood, CA. BOTTOM LEFT is me at the Q&A after a screening of
A Guy and his Beaver.

A Guy and his Beaver is an official selection of the 2009 Independent Television Festival. If you're in the Los Angeles area July 31 - August 6th, check out the festival (and most importantly, come out to support the beaver on the big screen).
More info at www.iTVFest.org

I know I've been neglecting my slogging duties, but that's because I've been busy working on the second episode of Home Office. Here is a frame of Rondo the puppet from episode 2.

I do all of my drawing on paper, but this is a practice drawing using a Wacom tablet. I drew over a photograph of my friend Ariel Lazarus. I'm not totally sold on the tablet yet, but I'm getting the hang of it.

Jessica Laine (Connie)

Ariel Lazarus (Leah)

Wesley House (George)

Stephen Leonard (Warner)

I'm now on Twitter for some reason! If my slog entires aren't enough for you, follow me on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/GiantPancake

One-sheet for a possible new series I'm developing.

A fat guy about to eat a hot dog.

Animals I designed for a friend. The goat and bunny may look familiar, but the others are new.

Designs for a project I'm working on. These are going to be animated characters added to a live action film. I've gotten slightly better at it since I made Couch Goat three years ago.

A character from A Guy and his Beaver 6. Yes, that's a comb-over.

Been busy writing and drawing. Currently writing a spec of "The Office" and drawing A Guy and his Beaver 6, plus developing a few other ideas. So here's some other other fun stuff to hold you over until I get a chance to post a new sketch.

Last July the animation site MyToons.com interviewed me as their "featured animator of the month". The entire article can be found on their site, but here are an excerpt from that interview:
(yes, I realize that it makes this more of a "blog" than a "slog", but I don't care)
------------------------------

What's the story behind My Life at 26? How did you come up with the concept?

There's not really any story behind My Life at 26. It's not autobiographical or anything, other than the fact that I was twenty-six when I started making it. After The Battle for Stick World, I wanted to make another stand-alone short that could also be the pilot for a series. I didn't necessarily know if I would have the time to make any more episodes, so by making a pilot I figured I'd have a solid individual cartoon, but I could also build it as a series and just keep using the same characters if I wanted to. I figured the "guy in his late 30's with a family" idea had been done with The Simpsons and Family Guy, and kids have been done with South Park, but there weren't really any of those kinds of shows with a 20-something guy as the lead.

Can you tell us a little bit about your past projects (your creation process, struggles, what you've learned, etc.)?

My first animated project was called "Couch Goat". It was basically an experiment to see if animation was even an option for me, using an animated goat sitting on a couch in my real life apartment. Since I already used Final Cut Pro for video editing, I just tried using that for animation. I only drew a few frames for each movement and I was really just guessing on everything. Eye lines, overall movement, file formats I should be using, etc. It turned out all right, but I wanted to do a better job. So I did another short, then I made the Battle for Stick World. Since I've never really done a lot of drawing, things often looked sloppy, or proportions were wrong. I only got better at it by drawing. A lot of drawing, over and over. I never stopped to become a better artist. I could have taken a break to get really good at drawing my characters, but I figured if I'm going to be doing all of that work, I might as put it to use in another cartoon. So if you watch all of my projects from Couch Goat to the My Life at 26 Shortoons, you'll see a very clear and gradual improvement in overall quality. And since I don't have any formal training in character design or animation, it's a constant struggle to figure out how things should look or move. But it's a fun struggle.