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Yes! I'm so proud to be a part of the Wander team.

Hater finally wins a trophy!

Last night Wander over Yonder took home the Annie Award for Best Animated Television/Broadcast for Children! 

Huge congratulations to everyone on our crew here at Disney TVA and at Boulder Media in Ireland. We have such amazing people working on this show and I would like to thank them all for their talent, their dedication, and their friendship. 

Wander is a blast to make and we try to instill each show with silliness, sweetness, and sincerity. It really means a lot to us to have our work recognized by those in the animation community- both professionals and fans.

So thank you!

Also congratulations to the other nominees, there were so many incredible shows nominated this year that I had no idea who was going to take it. I’ve been in this business for over 20 years and the quality of the work being made today continually inspires me to keep going and making cartoons.

So I guess this means it’s OK for Hater to think he’s “The Greatest in the Galaxy!”………. for a little while at least . 

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The 4 covers for issue 4 “Tale of the Woodsman’s daughter”! First one by me. Others by Nick Cross, Levon Jihanian, and Jordan Crane.

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Hey!

The back cover of the Over the Garden Wall DVD has been revealed!  Which means I can talk about the special features now:

Behind Over the Garden Wall: A short behind the scenes video that includes some interviews with the main cast, myself, and some footage of the recording sessions.  

Original Pilot: The original pilot, when the show was gonna be called Tome of the Unknown and it was about Wirt and Greg looking for a magic book.

Alternate Title Cards: Before settling on using the title cards we used, Nick Cross and I got a bunch of dry ice and tried to make a foggy looking title sequence. It never really came together right, so we ended up scrapping it… but it’s sort of interesting to see, i think. I put the full version of the end credits song over this video so you get to hear that song uncut.

Deleted Animatics: We cut a lot of stuff during the storyboard phase to make sure the episodes ended up being 11 minutes long, but we also cut some stuff during the animatic phase  (which is like a video of the storyboards with voices behind it).  Here are some of the more interesting/funny lines that were cut. Don’t expect, like, full sequences or anything… really just a few lines here and there. But I think they’re worth seeing (which is why we’re including them!)

Commentaries: Full commentaries for all the episodes of the series by me and Nick Cross.

Composers Cut: Probably the coolest special feature… you can watch the whole series without any dialog or sound-effects; just music and visuals! It’s pretty neat! I think the composers even spiffed up a few areas, and left some easter eggs and stuff here and there!

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The DVD comes out September 8th (in about a month) but you can pre-order it now if you want.

It’s $10 on Amazon and a bunch of other sites (Walmart, Best Buy, etc). It’s also available on the Cartoon Network site directly, I believe… and probably other places. If you don’t want to buy it at any of these places I listed you can probably find it somewhere else, or ask your local DVD salesman (?) that you want to get a copy and they can figure it out. I’ll leave the Amazon link here for your convenience though:

http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Network-Over-Garden-Wall/dp/B0119RZ67O/

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how did you get into this line of work? im 17 and im thinking of doing concept design work once i leave college.

I learned how to paint, and surrounded myself with other artists. Not just painters, but also cartoonists, animators, and illustrators. One of my friends referred me to someone, who referred me to someone else, who sent my work to art directors, and one of them hired me. By the time you leave college, the rules will be completely different than they are right now. I would suggest not waiting until you're out of college to do concept design, and definitely don't wait for someone to tell you what to do. Start now. The second you start doing concept design, you'll be a concept designer. Keep learning, build a community around yourself, and you'll be golden.

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Nerd post: Do you run a role playing game such as Dungeons & Dragons? I'm working on a new accessory for RPGs. It's a custom notebook designed around the needs of game masters/dungeon masters, and I'm looking for a few people to give it a test run and provide feedback! Send me a message if you're interested. It doesn't guarantee you one as I have extremely limited copies of the prototype at the moment but I'd love to eventually publish these if it's viable.

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Here's a video of ncrossanimation painting a background for OTGW the whole way through. Now you know everything I know and can be a pro.

Here’s a video I made in the early stages of pre-production for Over the Garden Wall to help to demonstrate some of the techniques for the background painters.  It was intended as a supplement to this document:

http://ncrossanimation.tumblr.com/post/108123550352/heres-a-background-tutorial-that-was-intended-to

Sorry it’s kind of long but I didn’t want to speed it up too much to help give an idea of how long it took to make…

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Here’s a background tutorial that was intended to hand out to the painters on Over the Garden Wall…I’m actually not sure if I ever did (maybe German or Levon can chime in on this) Anyway, I whipped this up super fast in the early days of pre-production and it might be of interest or help to some aspiring digital painters out there. 

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Here's an animated process gif of the edelwood tree from chapter 1. More info is on my blog.

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My ‪#‎OvertheGardenWall‬ tribute.

Everyone involved in this show did an awesome job. The series is gorgeous and funny and creepy and everything needed for it to be the beautiful show it is.

Remember, it’s a 5 nighter premiering this November 3rd on Cartoon Network!!

*Created by Pat Mchale, Art Directed by Nick Cross, Background Paintings by Levon Jihanian, Clarke Snyder and myself!! :D

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Over the Garden Wall poster by me and Laura Park. It was so great working with her on this!

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Sketchbook…color’s a little weird on the guy on the left

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LISTEN TO MY NEWEST SONG CALLED SKULL MUG!!!!!!! BUY THE SKULL MUG HERE http://society6.com/LevonJihanian/Skull-CYl_Mug#27=199

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What's the one piece of advice you wish you knew five years ago?

Don’t wait for anyone else to give you permission to make comics. Dive in and make your own.

But more important than the advice, I didn’t really have the guts to do it five years ago. You really need to screw your courage to the sticking place, and you don’t get that from someone walking up and telling you a piece of advice. You really need to dig deep and believe it in the pit of your stomach to go out there and fearlessly DO IT.

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Teaser for the upcoming ‘Skull and Shark’ album from Lazerhawk! Will be a full length soundtrack to my comic ‘Skull and Shark’, more announcements on that this Halloween! Lazerhawk Dave Rapoza

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Baldemar Pretzeldorf, Tony Wind & Duane Fields, the main characters of my comic book, Alamo Value Plus, published by Revival House Press. Issue #1 is 28 pages & it will debut August 18th at Autoptic in Minneapolis!

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I drew this comic based on characters that I found in some old comics.