When contemplating potential inspiration for grownup animated comedy, kids’s storybook characters as healthful and pure as Winnie the Pooh and Frog and Toad could not high everybody’s record. However for Brennan Brinkley, these actual tales kind the muse of what he refers to as his “Ranger Rick for adults” sequence, Pure Habitat Shorts.
“We wished it to be like if we launched capitalism to Frog and Toad,” explains Brinkley, who serves as director, animator, character designer, and a author for the shorts. “These animal characters need to do taxes, and somebody has to pay baby help, however all on this cute pastel setting.”
Created by Brinkley with fellow Florida State College animation program graduates Nicole Low and Tyler Kula, Pure Habitat Shorts is a sequence of 3D animations, all underneath one minute, that heart on placing numerous anthropomorphic animals into fashionable, human conditions that additionally play off enjoyable information about that exact animal star.
The episodes might be discovered on YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok and Twitter; conditions featured embody a bat as a grocery retailer worker screaming (or, utilizing echolocation) to search out which aisle the acorns are in; an opossum mother “emptying her pockets” and placing her younglings onto an airport safety conveyer belt; and an owl turning its head 270 levels to inform the folks sitting behind them within the movie show to hush up.
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Within the caption of every video, you’ll discover the enjoyable truth concerning the animal which impressed the quick.
“We knew a stunning quantity of animal enjoyable information to give you concepts for movies with these characters,” says Low, the present’s author, storyboard artist, character designer, and background artist. “And our movies, just like the mom opossum on the airport, that got here from all of us being in airports on a regular basis and seeing one thing humorous we may do with an annoying state of affairs. Then we discovered the animal to suit into that state of affairs.”
She continues, “Our concepts both come from humorous information we find out about these animals first, or they’ll come from eager to create a relatable video about being a human. These are our two formulation.”
In fact, not all Pure Habitat’s movies are so tame. Among the animations have chipmunk harassment, frog intercourse, crow homicide, rats with tickle fetishes, small animals eternally trapped in porcupine quills, and lifeless opossum mother and father. It may be unsettling, if it wasn’t for the colourful, chibi-like animation model.
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“We wished there to be lots of irony within the design,” notes Brinkley. “There’s irony in the truth that they’re 3D however they give the impression of being 2D. And there’s irony in the truth that we wish it to really feel nostalgic and like a storybook, however there are additionally frogs having intercourse on an open mic evening stage. It’s actually not for teenagers.”
The concept for Pure Habitat started throughout Brinkley, Low and Kula’s sophomore yr of faculty. Brinkley had designed a gaggle of animal characters and used them to make a brief movie referred to as Monster within the Woods. The movie was a few bunny (the identical bunny mannequin now utilized in Pure Habitat Shorts) who discovers a seemingly terrifying monster within the woods. Ultimately, he discovers it is only a canine on the lookout for his toy rabbit.
Brinkley hadn’t deliberate on doing something extra together with his characters. However after the trio of mates graduated, turned roommates, and went on to work in promoting, they discovered themselves revisiting Brinkley’s animal animations in an try to quench an unnourished artistic thirst.
“It was simply the artistic frustration of creating issues like beer banners for Fb and Instagram,” says Brinkley of their former promoting jobs. “We had been like, ‘We have to do one thing that made us need to pursue this profession within the first place.’”
Kula, one other author on the staff in addition to a previs artist, provides, “These had been simply such well-designed characters. We needed to put them to make use of. It could have been such a disgrace if we hadn’t.”
The movies’ sketch comedy model was initially impressed by short-form cartoon comedies common on YouTube again in 2009, corresponding to Lamas in Hats. Utilizing After Results and free 3D software program Blender to create their shorts, Brinkley says he wished to have the ability to create animated cartoons that felt hand-drawn and nostalgic however nonetheless made use of a extra fashionable medium of animation.
“I noticed it as a problem to have the ability to take this very new medium and have it come off as easy and conventional,” he says. “Now, I’m truly animating animal characters for a cellular sport firm for my full-time job, and I positively suppose engaged on Pure Habitat helped me get into that.”
The Pure Habitat staff produces a video each two weeks on Thursdays and not too long ago partnered with the impartial animator javadoodles on a crossover video that featured certainly one of Pure Habitat’s bats observing a cup of sizzling chocolate whereas the drink proceeds to inform the bat a narrative about writing to Santa to construct a time machine. Inevitably, the bat picks up the drink midway by way of the recent chocolate’s story and takes a sip, eliciting screams from the recent chocolate.
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The staff has additionally labored with voice actors like Sarah Natochenny, who has voiced for Pokémon’s Ash Ketchum – in addition to some 30 different Pokémon characters – since 2006. Natochenny voiced the owl in a Pure Habitat Halloween episode, which can also be a continuation of earlier movies the place the full-cheeked chipmunk, Mouth, is harassing certainly one of their rabbit characters.
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“I imply, her voice was our childhood,” says Brinkley. “Hers and Veronica Taylor’s. So, it was insane when she reached out to us saying she’d like to do a video. You possibly can inform she has voiced for Pokémon, as a result of she actually channels it in her animal voices.”
Whereas Brinkley, Low and Kula have loved creating their quick sketch comedy animations, they’re on the lookout for alternatives to develop their sequence’ potential and dive into longer-form storytelling.
“We’re speaking to lots of completely different locations proper now which are excited by pursuing longer-form TV reveals with us,” says Brinkley. “But it surely’s powerful to say when. I do not suppose we at all times realized how gradual the trade is. But it surely’s been actually thrilling as a result of, a technique or one other, whether or not it’s with studio funding or crowdfunding or simply by ourselves, we will do it.”
However the problem with translating their shorts to lengthy kind is checking on the continuity of the shorts, naming the characters, staying updated on the adventures every animal has been on to date, their relationship statuses, and causes they might be affected by accidents.
“Our viewers actually retains observe of it,” notes Low. “We had certainly one of our bunnies in a wheelchair for one episode, and folks had been like, ‘What occurred to him?’”
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Brinkley provides, “The easiest way I can describe it’s generally we’ll do one thing much like Tom and Jerry, the place you’ll see the identical character design used however as in the event that they’re a unique character. Because the characters are 3D, and now we have to mannequin them and rig them, we have reused characters rather a lot as a result of it is simply faster. However we’re considering that perhaps we’ll launch some type of timeline to elucidate what occurred to the bunny.”
Within the meantime, whereas Pure Habitat fleshes out the main points of what their future long-form endeavors will seem like, they’re plotting new animals to introduce into the combination, corresponding to a humorous and violent Canadian goose, a capybara, and elephant shrew.
“We’re simply attempting to be very cautious about each resolution we make,” says Kula. “It’s our child, particularly Brennan’s relating to the animation, and these characters imply rather a lot to us. We need to do proper by them.”
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all issues anime. She’s reported on quite a few tales from activist information to leisure. Discover extra about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
