The fine folks at Bullibone hired me to make the funnest animation I've ever had the pleasure of making. This was for their newest dog toothbrush toy. I knew it was going to be a great job when they mentioned they wanted Ren and Stimpy style close-up illustrations.
This was a hell of a challenge. Not only was it a long video, I challenged myself by doing things I rarely do. The job then expanded into creating additional marketing material.
Storyboards
Instead of hitting the computer and tablet for storyboards, I busted out the easel and my markers. I haven't done that in like fifteen years. I stood outside on the porch drawing for almost 4 hours. It was great. There was a scene involving a bunny and a wolf that was removed. Besides that, not much changed from boards to the final animation.
Character sketches
Here is the original sketch that won me the job. They wanted a sketch of a cartoon dog. I gave them four. 4 and 2 were going to hopefully show up in future videos.
More dog sketches for future dogs.
Dog animation
The dudes who hired me for this job were obsessed with having the dog dance. The dance in the actual video was an afterthought and really difficult to do. and doesn't look that great. I needed a way to make this dog dance and act in the future with minimal effort. Because minimal effort is my middle name.
Above is a dance sample I made in After Effects with the puppet tool. To the right is a rigged character in Adobe Character Animator.
Characters
I made these after I made the video. In case more cartoons were needed in the future. I know you're asking, "why didn't you make these first?" Well, I didn't have the time, and I didn't know if I'd be hired again to make another cartoon for them until after this one was finished.
The pet owners. I imagined the dude on the left being kind of an ass, middle guy would be kinda straight laced and unsure, while the lady on the right would be overly intense about pet ownership.
These are some of Bullibone's toys in cartoon form. My goals was to make the Superbrush look a little less...phallic.
Marketing Material
After the cartoon was made, I continued working with Bullibone creating illustrations for their marketing campaign.
Order, deliver, kisses.
Superbrush packaging logo
Token web badges
This box was too real for them
Extras
The original idea was to have the star explode, but that looked like they went from a 5 star review to a 4 star. I understand, but I kept this around because it's hilarious.
There was supposed to be a gag about your dog's breath smelling like a cottage cheese filled diaper. I'm kinda glad this got cut because I wasn't sure how I was going to animate that. I do wish Giant Hand made another appearance.
The opening scene was going to show a wild dog chasing a bunny. You think that the bun is gonna get eaten, but the wild dog goes for a stick instead. It didn't really work was scrapped altogether.
That's all!