Winners of the "Design Your Own Breakfast Monkey Villain" contest!

Last month I announced my very first contest, to design your very own Breakfast Monkey villain. We got an overwhelming response, and I even recruited special guest judge NISA CONTRERAS, Production Manager of Cartoon Network's VENTURE BROS and ROBOTOMY. It was tough decision, but here are the winners:

Grand Prize: AMELIA SALT for her character Cap'n Bedsheet!

Two runners-up: MADDY for her character Aryne Alchemist and Kate (MusicRox16) for her character Mr. Toastinator!

CONGRATULATIONS GUYS! And big big thank you's to everyone who entered! And to Nisa Contreras for her help and invaluable insight. You guys rock!! I will post drawings of the winning entries next Saturday, July 25th on my Youtube page. Don't miss it!

Pancakes & cream,

 Joe

Mikey the wolfboy

This little guy is from a project that I've been wanting to do for years, a pitch for a little kids' show called "Witchamazoo". The premise is kind of "Strawberry Shortcake" meets "Groovie Ghoulies". I don't want to give too much away about the show just yet, but Mikey the little werewolf boy is my favorite character. And possibly my favorite of all my character designs so far.
I've recently joined Patch Together, where I hope to get started on having some of my designs made into toys. My first submission is The Breakfast Monkey. I really want him made into a plush toy. If you do too (and honestly, how could you not) PLEASE join Patch Together and vote for him and leave a comment about how much you want a Breakfast Monkey plushie. The more positive feedback I get, the better my chances are of getting BMonkey toys made. I'm submitting Mikey next. He'll be up in a few days from now. I really want to make soft vinyl Mikey toys, so make sure you vote on him too! (UPDATE: Mikey is now up and available for voting: HERE)
Here are my blue-line and color roughs. In the color version, I've added Mikey's best friend, a tiny blue flea that Mikey has simply named "Bug".

Vampires Will Never Hurt You (but hide your donuts!)

It's been a while since my last post. I've been super-busy moving this month, and I've had no time for work. And I'm still not fully moved in yet! But I finally had some time to make a new Breakfast Monkey Youtube video, and to tell you about a new BM villain, MAGIC DRACULA! Magic Drac is our tribute to actor/comedian Rip Taylor. As you know by now, I'm a pretty big Sid & Marty Krofft fan. Rip played the genie Sheldon on the show "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters", which I always thought was freakin' hilarious. Just the idea that these teenage boys were friends with this super-gay confetti-throwing sea-genie wearing a cape and boxers...so damn funny. And I thought, how funny would it be to have that same personality in a vampire character? The result is Magic Dracula, a flamboyant, glittery pastry-vampire. No, he doesn't suck blood, but he just lovvves the insides of jelly donuts and chocolate eclairs, ruining Breakfast for donut-lovers everywhere. Obviously, this puts him on the Breakfast Monkey's shit list.
As always, here's the blue line sketch and the color rough:

 

Which brings us to my next topic: I'M HAVING MY FIRST CONTEST! The contest is "Design Your Own Breakfast Monkey Villain". Your baddie can be anything you want. He doesn't have to have anything to do with food, but he does have to make our little breakfast imp's mornings pretty miserable. I want everyone to be able to enter, so don't be intimidated if you can't draw very well. I can get a pretty good idea from just a rough little sketch. Parents & friends are allowed to help! And if you can't draw at all, that's okay too. Just send me a written description of your character, and I'll do the rest! Send all of your entries to me at joeboylenyc@gmail.com by May 31, 2011. The grand prize will be a drawing of your character by me, which I'll sign and send to you, and your character will appear in a future episode of "The Breakfast Monkey", AND you get an exclusive Breakfast Monkey t-shirt! This t-shirt won't be available anywhere else, so you'll be the only lucky duck in the world who owns it! Pretty sweet, right? And runners-up will get a signed drawing of their character! Okay? Okay! So get to it, Monkey fans!

The Breakfast Monkey Gets Colored

Color rough I did for the lovely people at The Breakfast Monkey's Facebook page. I promise I'll get you guys a nice cleaned-up version soon. The blue-line art is in my very first post.

Happy Birthday, Gerard Way!

Just a little sketch wishing a very happy birthday to my buddy Gerard from me and the Breakfast Monkey!

The Rescue Racer Crew

I did mention that it was an unhealthy obsession, right? So after posting my Pufnstuf sketch, my girlfriend suggested drawing his little deputies (I think they were also his nephews?), Cling & Clang. That was really all the incentive I needed to want to draw them. Well, that and another slow day at work with time for doodling, and voilà! They were fairly simple to do, there's not much to them. It's all about expression with these guys. But now that I'm looking at them, I think I could've pushed them a little more. Since they are little dragons, maybe add an indication of a tail? Maybe they can have cute little rounded fangs growing in? Food for thought when I actually have the time to do the whole Pufnstuf crew.
For now, here are my blue-line and color roughs. Let me know what you think...

Who's Your Friend When Things Get Ruff?

This started as a doodle that I did at work yesterday. I was totally inspired this weekend by Todd Kauffman's Pufnstuf blog, and out of boredom, I started drawing Puf. I drew him completely from memory, and I was surprised to find that it came out pretty accurate when I checked later online. Which probably means that I have an unhealthy obsession with the show. H.R. Pufnstuf was my favorite tv show when I was a kid, and I still love it today.

I've always wanted to do something with an animated version, and to be honest I was super-jealous when I saw Todd had not only already beaten me to the punch, but he had an entire website devoted to it! Great stuff, Todd! So, this is my take on Pufnstuf. I gave him little fangs, an indication of some scales, and a little wisp of fire coming out of his mouth, because he IS a dragon after all. I thought in animated form we could make him a little more dragon-like but still stay true to the Krofft's original design, and keep him cute and cuddly and kid-friendly. Eventually, I'd like to take a stab at some of the other characters, especially Witchiepoo, but that will have to wait til I have a little more free time. I'm already being completely irresponsible by spending my morning on this. But I really love it and wanted to share it with you. Let me know what you think.
Here's the blue line sketch and the color rough, and just so you can see the progression, here's the doodle that it came from. I wish I could do a finished color version so you can see the FULL progression, but that will also have to wait. Not enough hours in the day...

*UPDATE 4/15/2013: I've added the final digitally-colored version to show the full design progression. For a better look at the final design, visit this POST.