Mukpudafix!

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...

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!)

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

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....

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

First post of '09!!

Howdy all, Alex here, just thought I'd do the honours of the first post of the new year and give ya a peek at what I've been doing in my spare time over the last few months. I'd been wanting to paint some small canvas' to sell at at Kraftbomb (a craftfair my lovely wife Karla and her friend City have set up) and I thought it'd be fun to paint "classic" characters from movies and cartoons that I loved growing up! So where to start, oh yeah, Star Wars... (sorry about the quality of some of the pics, they were taken with my digital camera which sometimes isn't that great!)




I've also done some of the wrestlers I was into when I was a kid...





At the end of last year I was also asked to contribute to a charity show to help raise money for a local cat shelter. The theme was, of course, cats, so I painted my cat Nardis (again!)



I also did some paintings as Christmas presents for the other Muks...

Gizmoduck from Duck Tales for Ryan
Chorlton from the old British "stop-motion" show Chorlton and The Wheelies for Jeremy.
Zebadee from "The Magic Roundabout" for Tim
And a Doozer for Tims Fiance Tam!

I also painted my friends dog for her birthday, his name's George, he's a pug and constantly has his "lipstick" out...



More soon!!!

Merry Christmas - High Score!!

Hi folks!

Well, It's 9.30pm on Christmas Eve here in New Zealand. The world outside has suddenly gone very quiet. It doesn't seem to matter what age I am, Christmas just works for me. I get that strange feeling like I should be in bed with the covers pulled up tight so Santa doesn't see I'm still awake and excited about morning. Guess that makes me a Christmas nerd.

I really hope everyone has a safe and merry Christmas.
But before I go, the Muks and I want to leave you with a special message from the Sparkle Friends.



Oh yeah, and Merry Christmas to the other Muks, Jeremy, Alex and Tim. Cheers for a great year fellas. I look forward to more cartoon shinanigans next year. Tis an honour to work with you.

- Ryan

Mukky Christmas!

Hi Everyone.

Well, it's the end of the year already. How strange. I'm sure we missed out a few months. Does anyone remember August?

2009 is looking to be a corker for Mukpuddy. We have a 4th series of Sparkle Friends kicking off the year, followed by a few new projects that should be pretty exciting.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us over 2008. We hope you all have a safe and merry Christmas.

Oh yeah, it wouldn't be a Mukpuddy Christmas without a boozed up Santa.

Something new... finally!

Sorry it's been a while but here's something we just whipped up, it was an idea Jeremy had the other morning so we decided to make it...

More new stuffs coming soon!

DIRTY 30!!!!

Can it be? Is it true? Surely not! The 30th episode of Sparkle Friends already? Yes it is.......so stop hassling me ;) <---- (That's a winky face on its side. Just so you know I'm not really angry with you)

This episode was a hard one to make in the short amount of time we have to make them. Mainly thanks to Alex's gargantuan backgrounds slowing everything down. But we forgive him because they look bloody swell!! Nice one.

We've started throwing around ideas for a 4th season. So if all goes well, we'll be back working on more soon and you'll be seeing new episodes sometime next year.

Oh....another thing....this episode also features a pretty nifty Gungi plush that you may have seen us post about a few weeks ago (also see photo below!). If you want to enquire about purchasing one drop an electronic mail (email for those hipsters) to Alex and Karla of Geek Freeks fame. They'll see ya right!

Sparkle Friends goes Noir...

So... we're nearly at the end of this years run of Sparkle Friends and it feels kinda weird! To see where Sparkle Friends started and where it's ended up is very cool. It's pretty much a totally different show, at least in how we make it!

For some reason this episode didn't feel like it was going be a fun one to make. We cut together the animatic and it just didn't seem to be firing like the other episodes. However, due to fast approaching deadlines, we rushed it through and gotta say...it surprised the crap out of us! It turned out to be a bunch 'o fun and people seem to really dig it!! Much credit to Jeremy for scripting a nifty little mystery. Bravo!!

Mukpuddy on 20/20!!

Last year after we won the Auckland 48hours we were contacted by 20/20 New Zealand and they said they wanted to do a story about us.
It has taken a while to come together, but that's partly due to us having so much on. What with our trip to The States, new Sparkle Friends, more 48 Hours stuff, the It's The Pughs pilot - it's been a pretty full-on year!
So last night it aired on tv here and we couldn't be happier. We're very grateful they found us interesting enough in the first place, but also happy with how cool the finished piece is! We were really nervous about being on telly but now it has been and gone and we're super stoked.
So, a big thanks to Cara, Pete and all the 20/20 team, you guys rock! Check it out..... WATCH US!!!

Witchy-Poooo...

This episode is definitely one of favs, for one gag in particular, and I think you'll know which one it is once you've watched it. Once again Ryan provided an awesome voice for our additional character, even though he couldn't quite get the "whistles" down when he was in the voice recording booth...