Kappa-Chan!

Hey Folks! We're rocket-shipping towards the delivery date for the short so we're happy to finally share the film's title: "Kappa-Chan!" The film's first screening will happen here in Tottori Nov 30th and Dec 1st, 2013 (more details to follow) and we'll be releasing it online shortly after. For more news about the short, art, and a video series documenting the project, you can click HERE or on the banner above!

We first arrived in Tottori a few days before we were to begin production so I luckily had some time to wander around. Maki's from Japan but I've only been here twice before so there's still a ton of magic and mystery about this place. Shrines dedicated to Dragons, water you can drink right from the rivers, the largest hornets on the planet, and forests so dense you can't walk through. Scarily inspiring. Tottori was actually home to the legendary manga artist Shigeru Mizuki. His work is as amazing as it is unique and I can see how a place like this could help fuel his manga.

Alright I'll leave you with a few pics and shoot you some more soon. Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to check out our progress on the short over at Sing Along Pictures!

Talk to you soon!

7 with ALINA CHAU is UP!

Artwork by the wonderful Alina Chau!

Morning Folks! In case you haven't seen yet, our interview with Alina Chau is up and ready for your eyeballs over at CULTIV!

Updates Ahoy!

Hey Folks!

Hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. Not good yet? I have some news that will MAKE IT GOOD.

Cultiv continues going strong and along with it, our artist interview series, 7. In case you're unfamiliar with it, 7 is a series of interviews where we ask artists we love 7 questions about who they are, what they do, their thought process, and their craft. Going up this Monday is our interview with the wonderful, Alina Chau. I've been following her work for 6 years now so it was a complete pleasure to be able to interview Alina for the series. It's a great, great, interview and, as with our previous guests, we're incredibly grateful for her taking the time to do this with us and to be able to share it with all of you.

To check out our previous interviews with Shiho Oshita and Justin Coffee, head over to Cultiv or click HERE

On that note, if you enjoy the interviews or the work we do, we'd LOVE it you share it with your friends. We're an incredibly small operation and those simple shares go a long way.

In other news, you may have noticed a lack of bloggage on my part. My excuses are plentiful but my current one is that apart from Sing Along stuff, I've started working as a Story Artist on a new feature film: Ratchet & Clank. You can check out the teaser below:

It's been a blast so far and I'm honored to be working with such a talented team. You can expect to see Ratchet & Clank in a theatre near you in 2015.
Alright folks, that's enough news for now. Enjoy the weekend and we'll see you on all Monday! ~D

7 with JUSTIN COFFEE

Sorry for the lack of posts folks, but I return with something special. I'm so happy to announce that our second interview in Cultiv's interview series "7" is with the talented Justin Coffee! I fell in love with Justin and his work years ago when we were working together in animation so it's great to be able to interview him and get his voice out there so you can get a sense of who this guys is.  So to see more incredible artwork like the one you see above, and to get inside the head of an extremely talented and knowledgeable guy head over to CULTIV or click on the image below.

See you guys there!

~D

Marriage Equality

Hey Folks, I'll just let the image do the talking, today. Well, the writing in the image...

7 with Shiho Oshita at Cultiv!

Shiho Oshita's interview on CULTIV is up, folks! An incredible lady and wonderful artist. From animation school, to working with one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people (the only visual artist selected at the time), to breaking off on her own to follow her passions. We're very happy to be able to do these interviews and so glad to have Shiho start this thing off right.

Click HERE to check out 7's debut interview with the wonderful Shiho Oshita!
~D

More thing's with 7 in the title...

Hey Folks! We got some Cultiv news for you!

CULTIV is going strong and the response has been great! We're quickly approaching our 100th post, and to celebrate, we've launching a brand new segment called "7". 7 is a series of interviews where we ask artists we love, you guessed it, 7 questions about who they are, what they do, their thought process, and their craft.

To check out the announcement you can head over to Sing Along Pictures HERE and stay tuned! Our first interview is with the incredibly talented Shiho Oshita! We'll keep you posted with when you can see it.

Alright, folks - thanks so much for stopping by and we'll see you soon.


~D

Sing Along Pictures and ROCO

Hey Folks! Got some fanboy news for you - me being the fanboy unless you too are a fan of ROCO. Sing Along Pictures was featured on ROCO's official website at World Apart! As you may or may not know, ROCO not only created the music for our Title Card, but also makes an appearance in our debut project, OMO. Click HERE for a teaser and HERE for OMO!

So this weekend I had an epiphany about advertising. In the beginning I shied away from it. Maybe because it felt braggy or maybe because of years of other people's questionable advertising practices, I'm not sure. I just heard some guy in the back shout, "ALL YOU TALK ABOUT HERE IS SING ALONG - WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU SHY AWAY?!" First off, no shouting from the back - this is a blog not some factory that makes shouts AND SECONDLY, these days, Sing Along is a big part of my life, sir, and you should be thankful I'm editing out other details like bowel movements and inner monologues about cleaning or not cleaning my desk (what if this exact messy arrangement is responsible for idea generation? What if THAT?!) Either way, I'm just telling you what I did or am doing at my personal blog. It's different, right guys?

But if you're running a business, advertising is extremely important. So important, people will literally try anything just to grab your attention. From dressing up in costumes on the street to studying a viewers brain pattern while exposed to certain video clips so they can then create movie trailers that actively trigger selected emotional responses from an audiences.

Not sure if it's necessary to go that far but just imagine if you didn't see that ad for the latest Star Wars installment? I seriously don't even want to consider it. So my (overly obvious) epiphany was this: No one can enjoy your work if they don't know it exists. And why not talk about something you're proud of or you loved doing? That's the craziest part. So I'm jumping in with both feet, folks and I suggest all you other artists do the same. Get your stuff out there and share what you love so I can enjoy it - and hopefully you'll enjoy ours.

On that note...

~D

Revealing?

It's Monday so we have a new update over at Sing Along Pictures!

The Devil's 7 production is moving along at a good pace but we've also begun early development into Sing Along's next NEXT release and the earliest scratches into the next next NEXT. If anyone would like to offer lessons in additional arm growing, just shoot me a line and we'll figure out an arrangement.


~D

Sing Along Pictures Title Card Animation

Hey Folks! Happy Monday and a happy President's Day to all the Americans out there!

Today, we updated the Sing Along site with this video, the Sing Along Pictures Title Card Animation!

You may have seen the title card before HERE but this is the first time you're hearing it with Roco's music! As I am with Maki Fujimoto and Kayoko Nagashima, I'm a HUGE fan of Roco. We have all of her albums and was lucky enough to meet her a few years ago in Tokyo. She's incredibly wonderful and amazingly creative so when she said yes to working with us I almost cried. Like big weepy tears, cried.

So check it out and I hope you guys like it as much as I do! Maki, Kayoko, and Roco all did an amazing job with special thanks to Kei Fujimoto for keeping everything working silky smooth. And keep an eye out for it, folks - if all goes well you'll see it in front of some animation sooner or later ;)


~D

The Devil's 7

It's Tuesday folks! We had a long weekend here in Canada so here I am, a day late to the rest of the world.

So what's the news for today? We released the title of Sing Along's upcoming project written and illustrated by yours truly: The Devil's 7. The current tag line is this:

“1941. New York City. Seven girls are just… gone. And out I go to find ‘em.”

The project is very much inspired from the crime pulp magazines and novelettes from the 1930's - 1940's and film noir. I love that era so diving into the research material for the story has been incredible. It seems to always end up with me looking at pocket watches from that time period and rubbing the paint off my credit card while battling the urge to use it. So far so good, folks. But enough about disruptive fascinations. As with all things Sing Along, to find out more info head over to the blog HERE

Speaking of which! Have you guys checked out CULTIV yet? The response has been amazing and it's already FILLED with great stuff. I was nervous to cut the Inspiration Wednesday posts but seeing how it's doing makes it super worth while. Check out Cultiv HERE

~D

  

STUFF!

Very excited this fine morning - We released our first design ‘OMO One’, an original design created specifically for this limited set of products, through the good folks at Red Bubble! To check them out, click on the image above or right HERE

I'm super picky about the quality of things. Whenever I get something and it doesn't meet my unrealistic standards, I go on a 45 minute, old man rant to my poor wife. It's unhealthy. BUT, it does mean I was on the look out, scouring the web, look through company about pages and endless customer reviews, checking for the best possible product we can put out there.

The world is polluted with a ton of stuff just made to get out there and turn around a buck. People are entitled to do that free from old man judgement ( I tell myself in the reflection in my spoon ) but I don't want to contribute to that with my own company. So this design was made just for these products and is not available on anything that takes print. That is, unless you want it ;)

So we're happy to go through Red Bubble. Great quality, organic options, Apple approved gear, and most importantly - happy customers. If you're looking for a new iPhone/iPod/iPad case, tshirt, etc - check it out!


~D

PS: Introduced my wife to Star Trek: The Next Generation at last. I've fulfilled my geek duty to create an additional Trekker. My 2 year old is next.

Almost Forgot!

Holy geez! I almost forgot! I did a new teaser for Sing Along Pictures' next project! Coming this spring, folks! For more clues and to stay up to the minute on what's happening check out the site HERE

Listening In...

A new teaser for Sing Along Pictures' Spring 2013 project is up! You can check out more clues to what we're up to by clicking HERE. I'm also extremely pleased to announce this project will be directly translated into Japanese. For teasers in Japanese click HERE

This project is being written and illustrated by yours truly so you can now see my own art on my art blog - a crazy concept, I know.

Talk to you good folks soon and hope you all had a good weekend.

~D

Clues to the Future

Hey folks! We started dropping hints about Sing Along Pictures next project coming Spring 2013!

Things have been hectic on our end and I've been being forced to neglect my blogs. Especially my poor, poor, watch blog. I'll be back, darling. Wait for me...

~D

More Questions!

Since we released Sing Along's first project OMO, as mentioned before, we had some questions about the product. Some of the questions concerned the absence of any Digital Rights Management on our work. And what is DRM anyway? Well I wrote a little piece over at the Sing Along blog addressing the question and our current position on the use of DRM.

You can check it out HERE

You can get your own copy of OMO, Sing Along Picture’s debut project (starting for only $5), HERE

Take care, folks and we'll talk soon! As always feel free to shoot us any questions or comments you might have HERE

~D

OMO has Arrived!

Ah.. OMO is up and ready to go at last! Click on the image or HERE to head over to the sparkling fresh Sing Along Pictures Store!

Which brings me to my next point - creating an online store is... difficult. Not for all you normies out there, just for me. HTML is like algebra to me and if you ask my high school math teacher, he'll tell you that means I suck at it. Well, I sucked at it. Now, I can do it and all it cost me was time. Time to learn and the time it took to collect all the hair I lost. You all collect hair, right?

Anyway, so glad Omo is out there now - it was worth the hair loss. To me, it's not just a project but a bit of a symbol that if you're determined enough you can do the stuff you like.

~D

Monday Night!

Happy Monday night, folks! Running a little late on the ol' personal blogosphere! I've been pretty busy lately - working on a couple projects while going through the final stages of OMO before the release! So things are a bit hectic but going good!

So updates! We announced on Saturday Sing Along Pictures' first project will be being released on Nov. 27th 2012 and today we put up a new teaser for OMO. If you want to check it out and some other little details, head over to Sing Along HERE

I'll have more to say soon but I'm pretty focused on the release so bare with me. We want this thing to be as good as we can get it so we're pouring in the extra hours. Hopefully you guys dig it!

~D

OMO Release Date Announced!

Announcement day! Today we announced the release date of Sing Along Pictures' first project, OMO!

There's still a lot to finish but we're pretty excited to be able share exactly what we've been working on for so long. OMO will be available for purchase on Nov. 27th 2012. Click on the image above or HERE for more information and details about what's going to be available.

Can't wait for you to see it!

~D

Just about there!

Good morning folks! Hope everyone had a good long weekend! Unless it wasn't long then I apologize for rubbing it in. It's the start of the week and as always we have some news to share over at Sing Along Pictures and another sneak peek at our first project, "Omo".

Lots to do still so I got to get back to it but hopefully you guys are digging the teasers so far. They'll be wrapping up shortly and Omo will be available soon. It's been a dream making this thing with such amazing artists. Getting exciting and hope you guys enjoy.

~D