"Abby's Flying Fairy School" Sketchbooks

At long last, I'm publishing some drawings from my sketchbooks I kept from 2008–2011 at Speakeasy FX while animating on Sesame Street's cartoon, "Abby's Flying Fairy School." None of these sketches is the Mona Lisa. But I hope they show a bit about how I planned my shots for the series. Enjoy!

Ah, what a delight to animate CG frog Muppets! It's cool to have a small part in Jim Henson's legacy.

"I guess Gonnigan was ready."

Sesame Workshop invited the Speakeasy crew to visit their sound stage in Queens, New York a couple of times. I saved my visitor badges.

"Clean-up time!"

Ever wonder how an octopus juggles sludge balls?

A unicorn bucks Blahg off, ass over teakettle.

One of Blahg's famous non sequiturs.

Blahg gets tackled by six sheep and struggles out from under the dogpile — er, lambpile.

All the other animators refused this assignment. I guess I have a sick mind, because I enjoyed animating a troll digging ear wax out of another troll's ear.

Blahg is surprised when his sock comes to life, shouting, "It's alive!" in an homage to Frankenstein.

"This is Flying Fairy School, and I'm Abby—your biggest fan!"

And when the server went down...time to draw Batman!

This was reference for a shot. I promise.

Here's my derivation of the formula for correctly preserving the volume of geometry when squashing and stretching. (My junior-high teacher was right: I did use all that math!)

Blahg gets a sand pail stuck on his head. (Or else joins the Order of the Mystic Shrine.)