Play Ball!!! a Cully Koala cartoon short

For decades I've wanted to create a Cully Koala animated cartoon. The  I never thought I'd be able to because of technical limitations. But technology has exploded, and anyone can create beautiful animation  (they just need to know how).

Cully was originally conceived as an animated character. I used to watch and love Peanuts and Garfield cartoons. I thought they were animated cartoon characters; I didn't realize they started out in comic strips in the newspapers. When I created Cully, I wanted him to be like a Mickey Mouse, Snoopy, Garfield, etc. I didn't have anyway to animate him, so I followed the examples of Charles Schultz and Jim Davis and created a comic strip. Once I discovered Calvin & Hobbes, Cully took on a whole new dimension. But I still wasn't completely satisfied.

Then I discovered Richie Rich and Archie comics, and created a Cully comic book of my own. The characters worked much better in the longer format. I thought maybe comic books would be a doable outlet. But it lacked something.

A few years ago I took a graduate class in animation and discovered a way to animate with Apple's iLife. I created a really cool short, but it was so much work that I knew that route wasn't viable. There had to be a way to let technology do the grunt work while I concentrated on the creative side.

Enter Anime Studio Pro. I've been considering this program for a while, and even downloaded the demo to try it out, but I'd never had the results I wanted. I was about to give up and go back to drawing cartoons by hand, but I said to myself, "Self, you've got to push thru. You've got ideas, and this program can make them happen."

And it did.

Let me know what you think!

2-D Animation

I've always loved 2-D Animation, and I've always wanted to produce my own, but the equipment and materials were way too expensive for an enthusiast to get into before the digital age. Then Apple released iMovie, and I was able to create my first animation. It turned out pretty cool, but it was a lot of work, took a lot of time, and there was so little movement.

I knew how I wanted to animate; I just needed a program that would let me. I found several that came close, but not close enough.

Then I found Anime Studio Pro. It did almost everything I wanted it to, so I bought it a year ago, but didn't have time to do much with it. Then I was asked to create an animated intro for an ice sculptress in California. This was the perfect chance to try out my new software.

It took longer than I thought, and the program had a few quirks I had to get use to, but overall it performed admirably. The render was beautiful. The special effects worked well. I used Norkross Movie maker to add the sound and sound effects and wallah!

I was very pleased with the final results. I hope you are too.