I recently did an interview with Drew of BthroughZ, and whaddya know! It's just been posted: http://bthroughz.com/june09/index.html
Casilda's Hat Contest
The infamous Casilda hat is complete, teeth and all. Are you its rightful owner? Prove it by telling us the origin of its trophy teeth, and the hat could be yours.
What to do:
Casilda's hat bears three bloodied human teeth as sinister trophies. But whose teeth were they? What terrible thing did Casilda do to acquire them... or was it even Casilda's doing? This is your task - write a short story that answers these questions. If you need a refresher on the original tale, watch the video for El Despertar here.
You win:
A real-life hat just like Casilda's, hand-decorated by yours truly with teeth sculpted from polymer clay and painted with acrylics, bound together by red suede. The hat is sized small-to-medium but is still pretty large and should fit most heads if the winner wishes to wear it. It will be delivered by mail in a lovely scarlet hat box and comes with a signed card.
Rules:
- Your story must be between 700-1000 words long
- Must be written by you and you alone!
- MUST mention Casilda's hat, the teeth and obviously Casilda. You may also use any other character from El Despertar - or any other Skary character - or invent your own.
- Have fun with it!
- Anyone from any country may enter, but the story must be in English (getting help with translations is fine)
- When your story is finished, post it to your own blog, Facebook profile (must be public, though!), site or wherever you want*, preferably with a link back to skary.net.
- Send us a link to your entry. You can use the contact form, send a direct message or reply via twitter @katytowell, or leave a comment at Facebook
- You may enter as many times as you like, but the winning entry will be based on quality, not quantity.
- The winner will be chosen within two weeks after the deadline and announced on skary.net, at which time said winner will be contacted for a mailing address.
- Some legal stuff: by entering, you acknowledge that your story may be posted to any Childrin R Skary site at any time. Childrin R Skary, Skary, Casilda, the hat and teeth you're writing about and El Despertar all belong to Katy Towell, so don't do anything silly with your story like turn it into a major motion picture and make millions without so much as a by-your-leave. Also, you can't return your hat if you win it and don't like it, and no, you can't have the monetary equivalent. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, they say.
New Deadline: 11:59 PM Pacific, June 24th, 2009. Don't be late!
*If you want to, you can even video yourself reading your story and post it to YouTube. That won't give you any advantage, but it would be pretty cool. If you do this, please post a written version somewhere else, though.
Photos of the prize (there's only one, you know):
News about the cartoon but also some answers
Hey and hello! I hope everyone had a happy Memorial Day weekend, even if you're not American. I spent mine writing, animating, and attending a barbecue where a horrible, terrible, awful children's version of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was played. (Where can I get a copy for myself?) The upcoming cartoon is still underway and could take some time even though it's short, as I have other projects to work on. I'm not going to tell you when to expect it, but I guess I can tell you what it's about now that I'm sure I'm not going to change my mind. The working title (likely to be changed) is Masterpieces Explained. Sounds boring, I know, but it's the real story behind a very famous painting. (No, it isn't The Scream, and it's nothing by Dali). You all think you know the story behind this one, but I'm telling you now: you're wrong. Anyway, that's all I'm saying. You'll find out more soon.
Oh, a couple of notes... have you noticed there's a Facebook quiz now? Also, there's an easier way to send fan art.
All righty. Time to answer some emails.
Where did your inspiration come from for the girl. -TH
I guess you could say I wasn't very happy when I wrote that and, while Emmeline's story is not at all autobiographical, it came about because, well, I felt like writing about revenge. And originally, that's how the story ended. Emmeline got fed up, exploded with rage, crash-bang-boom, the end. But that sort of ending isn't how things happen in life. Vengeance is, in reality, a very nasty thing that only makes a bad situation worse. As I thought about this, the story developed further. How the specific details of a small girl with a monster friend came about, I'm not really sure. It just fell into place. But my point with the story is not only that love is more important than toys and things but also that bottling up one's feelings until they explode is just as dangerous to oneself as whatever caused one to bottle them up in the first place.
(Also, I had a fuzzy white dog once. Her name was Tofu. She didn't have red eyes or wings, but she was my best friend. And she liked socks.)
Do you comission the artists/orchestras yourself for your movies? Are you involved with the creativity process with the score? -N
Most of the music from my cartoons is purchased stock music or public domain or otherwise royalty-free. My friends Gwydi and Aisha Elderwyn composed and performed the soundtrack to When Genevieve Ruled the World, however, and I was as involved in that process as I could be without abusing the very generous gift of their talents. Basically, I gave them the script with extremely detailed notes on what was supposed to sound like what and where, and they sent me snippets of music for me to approve along the way. It was a lot of fun (for me, anyway), but also a great deal of work (for them, definitely)!
Is skary something from your own personal time? ... Have you've been approached for commercial items? - N (part 2)
It is most definitely from my own personal time, and a big chunk of it too. Not that I mind, of course! I have, indeed, been approached for commercial items a few times, but it was always either the wrong thing or the wrong time, or I was at risk of losing my control over it. It's wonderful when artists are able to profit from their work in any way. I'd just rather let mass-produced t-shirts wait until people actually know what it's all about.
I noticed that the captions for the skary movies have been mysteriously ran away from the posted movies on this site. I enjoy the captions (being a wee bit stone-deaf) and wondered if you could post the clips with captioning at at least on the skary youtube tags. - N (part 3)
That is an excellent suggestion. I moved everything to YouTube because the burden on my site is immense every time I post something new. It's just so much easier to host them elsewhere! But I hadn't even thought about the subtitles and, as soon as I have the time, I will add those to the YouTube videos, too. Thanks for the reminder!
Question-and-Answer Time
Happy Sunday evening, everybody. I hope you're sitting at your desk with a cup of black tea, your computer, and some Billie Holiday. But if you're not, that's all right. I'll carry the responsibility this time. (But next time....) As you know, I recently relaunched skary.net! There's new art on the way, a very short animation in the works, and I'm in the middle of a couple of writing projects as well. That doesn't mean I've neglected my inbox, of course. Without further delay, here are a few of the questions I've gotten over the past week:
I love love love your drawings and movies. The illustration titled "Midnight Snack" I adore. Nosferatu, am I right? - LF
You are correct! "Midnight Snack" is a parody of a famous scene from F.W. Murnau's 1922 film Nosferatu, which I admit I don't watch very often because it gives me nightmares.
hey hey hey! its FAT ALBERT have u bought your candy for halloween i hope so cuz i'll be there to eat it all! - Fat Albert
All right. You do that. But I'd put on my running shoes if I were you.
I have all of these dreams that turn into cartoons than into great ideas...my question is how to get started into the way of creating movies as you? It has always been my dream to do so, I have the artistic talent but no idea how to start. -W
Well, I use Flash for animating my cartoons, and a lot of practice. There are so many people better at it than I, but they'd probably say the same thing: learn the software and practice your heart out. After that, post your creation everywhere and wait for feedback! Even negative feedback is immensely helpful. Your start might be a slow one, but don't lose heart! And good luck.
I have a quick question though, what happened to the movie 'Stage Fright' ? Where the girl flips out because everyone's staring at her (i'm sure you know that, being it's creator an all, lol) .. I can't seem to find it anywhere. -C
I sort of... well... took it down. It was my very first animation effort, and I've never been especially proud of it. But if you'd like to see it anyway, it's here.
i love your website, its really great. and im just thinking that if i could promote your web (i dont need to be pay) with some labels to put on my blog or anything i could do to promote yor web i really like to do it. - L
That's not a bad idea, L. I'm pleased as punch whenever anyone wants to promote my site, and you're all free to do so however you wish! But if you would like something more official, here are a few for you:
