I know I posted it on here months ago when I actually made the cartoon, but the second SubparGeekGirl96 short "Date" is now public (with a couple of imperceptible little tweaks from the previous version).
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPBnZ3hJ8is
NEWGROUNDS: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/999151...
2025-09-23 19:50:13 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been busy with lots of boring real-life crap I won't share on here, but I'm finally caught up with the initial wave of online orders for the Sublo zines. It's been an interesting experience doing them-- I was all excited about the creative side of making a book, but I underestimated just how much tedious labour is involved in self-publishing anything. I'm delighted by how well the zines have been selling, but running a shipping operation and going to the post office every c...
2025-09-22 21:23:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Ok I'm too busy to do a proper digital illustration, but here's a little watercolour sketch to celebrate! ten years wtf?! how did this happen? anyway I seriously appreciate every one of you who have stuck with the show and continued to support me while my slow ass trickles out episodes. You WILL get a new cartoon very soon!
2025-08-29 16:55:17 +0000 UTC View PostTomorrow, August 29, is going to be the ten-year anniversary of Sublo and Tangy Mustard's first episode! Seems like a good time to make the Production Notes zine available online, so I finally got my act together and launched a BigCartel shop where people can buy it. And since you're on this Patreon you're hearing about it a day early. You can go order it right now if you want!
Along with the main ...
2025-08-28 21:01:33 +0000 UTC View PostHere's a little rough walk cycle of a figure trudging through snow I did a couple of weeks ago. I played around with giving it a watercolour look in Flash by colouring it with a few layers of transparent scribbles. Not totally convincing but kind of neat? I thought it went well with this song from my Life Time album "Pitch Black Night," probably because I have the sound of walking through deep snow in the song later on.
I just got through a couple of weeks where I wasn't able to work on...
2025-08-22 17:46:13 +0000 UTC View PostHey this isn't cartoon stuff but I have three albums of new music that I just released on Bandcamp and on Youtube. Well not entirely new, I posted early versions of some of these songs about a year ago on here (to thunderous, deafening silence!) but anyway now they're out in the world. It's mostly just stuff I recorded for fun over the past few y...
2025-08-11 21:30:04 +0000 UTC View PostHere's a little scene from the next Sublo episode, where the gang is driving up to Markham. The music is obviously temp (shh!) along with some other elements - the painted BGs aren't in yet, for instance. Anyway I think this is the first time we've actually been inside a car in the show, I find public transit more interesting. I dunno if the little laugh at the end will make sense out of context. Or in context.
I've been making good progress on animation! I'd say the episode is probably...
2025-08-02 19:05:58 +0000 UTC View Post
Just felt like sharing some sketchbook scribbles from the last week or so. I'll have a more substantial Sublo update soon, hopefully tomorrow. I've been trucking away on the animation for it, prepping to do another workshop next week and doing a little freelance... Maybe there was something else too, I forget. I've been pretty busy. Anyway I also just finally saw the Wim Wenders movie Perfect Days from a couple of years ago and loved it! Wholeheartedly recommend everybody give it a watch, I f...
2025-08-01 02:39:02 +0000 UTC View PostAs I work on Sublo and Tangy Mustard, I'm reminded again and again that the more creative choices I leave for myself in the animation stage, the more engaged I am, and the better it goes. When everything is all figured out too early, it just leaves a big pile of tedious follow-up work and you lose the chance for spontaneity.
I feel this way not just about the animation, but the whole production workflow. You have to leave room for playing around in voice records, trying different visua...
2025-07-23 23:28:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Animation is progressing steadily! Tonight I'm in the middle of a long driving scene (the first image). The characters are just sitting and talking, so it's very simple in terms of movement, but the length and number of characters makes it tedious. Overall I'm having a good time on this episode though-- it is one of the more talky ones so it's not all super-exciting to draw, but there are a bunch of little character interactions that make me laugh each time I see them. Rather than a big signi...
2025-07-17 01:29:10 +0000 UTC View PostHere's a quick WIP clip from the next Sublo and Tangy Mustard episode (s3 e5 Catering)! There are a lot of group shots I've been putting off, so much of the episode isn't contiguous yet, but here's a tiny spoiler-free chunk from early on.
Also, a general update:
Tabling at the Book Doof event went better than I even hoped. A bunch of friends and new faces showed up to grab the S&TM Production Notes zine and just hang out. Having the show playing on a CRT TV was fun, I'd like t...
2025-06-28 14:51:37 +0000 UTC View PostI've been scrambling to get the Sublo and Tangy Mustard Production Notes zine to printers in time for the June 5 event I'm tabling at, and putting together stuff for the indie production workshops I mentioned, which have been a lot of fun so far.
I'll sell the zine online once I have it to make sure the quality is ok. I'll also offer a PDF version, maybe on Gumroad with a promo code for patrons or something. Still figuring that out.
Anyway the main point of this post is to share 4...
2025-05-29 22:14:32 +0000 UTC View Post
I'll be out of town for a couple of days, so I wanted to squeeze a little update out before then. Recently I've mostly been focused on putting together the Sublo and Tangy Mustard Production Notes zine, since this year will be the 10th anniversary of the show (oh god). Sorry if I already outlined this here before, but here's the info: It will be between 70-80 pages. The first half focuses on the content of the show-- how the characters have developed, how each season came together and the ind...
2025-05-11 13:57:51 +0000 UTC View PostGoing through old storyboards to grab frames for the upcoming Sublo and Tangy Mustard production notes zine, I found a few tidbits I'd forgotten about from Katy's Birthday (season 1 episode 4), that I thought I'd share now:
- a slightly different storyboard of the opening scene
-alternate animation of Katy's drunken rant about Mr. Wubhamer (which I then reboarded cutting around more to make the scene feel more dynamic and intense)
-extra shots from the party montage of Sublo...
2025-04-26 16:27:55 +0000 UTC View PostI promised a video about animating cars, so here it is! Listen to me ramble as I poke around in my Flash files and show you some of the techniques and ideas I'm using for the driving scene in the next Sublo and Tangy Mustard episode (season 3 episode 5 "Catering").
Let me know if this is too long or boring or what. I can do more of this if you like, but I don't know how much demand there is for this level of nerdery.
2025-04-16 01:21:12 +0000 UTC View PostI'll have another art post soon about animating cars, but in the meantime here's a recent interview I did for UWM student Stavros Hatzopoulos.
Q: What got you to start pursuing animation as a career?
A: I've always loved animation. I drew compulsively as a kid and by about age six I was trying to learn how cartoons were made. I would still-frame through tapes on our VCR, and borrow how-to books from the library. A big thing for me was the documentary Bugs Bu...
Some of the colour keys for the next Sublo and Tangy Mustard episode - this part is always really fun, it feels like digital finger painting. There's no expectation of making "a good drawing." In general that's something I love about indie production, compared to working in the industry and having to pitch each step of the process to higher-ups. I never have to sell an exec on any idea, or reassure them it will come together by making each step 'presentable'. I always feel like so much time i...
2025-03-28 20:37:41 +0000 UTC View PostHey I'm still working on backgrounds... Lots of cars and dreary suburban office parks. Here's a couple of shots I've been working on - the car animation here is just mockups with the keys tweened around, I promise it'll look better in the final version! But I figured I'd share a bit. I also have to draw a few car interiors, which I've been leaving for last because I'm really not looking forward to them. Cars are second only to bicycles in everyday things I hate drawing. At least modern cars -...
2025-03-19 22:52:21 +0000 UTC View Post
As I've mentioned here before, the next Sublo and Tangy Mustard episode is about the Subpar gang driving out to the suburbs to do catering at a dreary office park. Most of the backgrounds aren't particularly exciting to look at (lots of office hallways, desks and tables) so I've been reluctant to share them... But I'm finishing up the last few at the moment, and it's been a while since I shared any glimpses of upcoming stuff. I've animated a bit too but again nothing very exciting on its own....
2025-03-11 17:33:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Another Sublo and Tangy Mustard pic I drew last week, and finished off this morning! I'll have a bigger update with BGs from the next episode soon, there are a lot of them but I've been chipping away at the stack.
2025-03-07 19:58:41 +0000 UTC View PostRandom non-cartoon-related video, but I'm posting it here since it features Kevin (Tangy Mustard).
Our friend Anthony had a short layover in Toronto, so we met him at one of our favourite greasy burger places not far from the airport, Apache Burgers. Anthony brought us some snacks from his recent visit to Denmark and Kevin felt the urge to review them.
2025-02-23 14:54:41 +0000 UTC View PostWhen I made the Nightclub episode I did these little dance loops of Sublo, Tangy Mustard, Katy and Vanessica. I think maybe I used them for promo the day the episode was released, but they probably got a little buried. I also found a few abandoned early attempts and threw them in here too.
2025-02-21 17:40:10 +0000 UTC View Post
New Sublo and Tangy Mustard art fresh out of the oven! I've been doing more of illustrations lately since I need covers for the soundtrack release and the production notes zine, and didn't want to just reuse old stuff. Plus I think it's nice to have art of the characters that isn't just stills from episodes, or stock poses of them doing the generic "gimme a dollar" gesture. We've had a ton of snow in Toronto lately, so I felt like doing a winter scene. The second one is a ripoff of an o...
2025-02-21 17:35:29 +0000 UTC View PostI've got a few major projects I'm juggling right now. Doing them all at once has maybe not been the best approach because it means each individual thing takes longer to come out, but eventually:
-More Sublo and Tangy Mustard episodes, as always!
-A Sublo making-of zine (...or book?! Trying to keep it small but there's a lot of material. I'll share some sample pages here soon! I was aiming to keep it under 60 pages, but it might be more like 100)
-Rough animation compilation+commentar...
Wow I don't know how they did it considering two of them are dead, but it sure was nice of these lads from Liverpool to sing a tune about Sublo and Tangy Mustard! They must be big fans, clearly they have great taste in cartoons! I wonder if Ringo is a Patreon member under an alias. Peace and love, peace and love!
2025-01-05 16:53:59 +0000 UTC View Post
I hope you all had good holidays! It's a little late to post here now, but here's the key art for Shopping and the Subpar Sirens calendar art from the episode.
I've mentioned it before, but Shopping is actually an old unused script from season 2 (with a couple of tweaks and new lines). Each year I had considered making it, and sometimes I just didn't think it was substantial enough to bother with, while other years I started thinking about it too late. Now t...
Here's the new episode! Sublo and Tangy Mustard bring you a heartwarming holiday tale of that most universal yuletide pastime, shopping for gifts. Maybe I'll edit this post to say something more interesting, for now I gotta go post it on social media. Let me know what you think!
2024-12-20 17:45:43 +0000 UTC View Post
This little Christmas episode is almost finished. I've only got 4 shots left to animate and they're all fairly simple. Hopefully by this time tomorrow they'll all be complete! I still haven't imported the backgrounds, but here are a few more animation frames for you patrons. I'm still on track to release it near the end of this week, ideally the 19th or 20th. It's been a grueling (but also very fun) couple of weeks since I started this rush job but I'm glad I'm doing it, if only so I can say ...
2024-12-17 01:20:33 +0000 UTC View Post
Okay, I'm deep enough now into making this Sublo and Tangy Mustard short, and still on schedule with it, that I can confirm you'll get it in time for Christmas! It's called "Shopping" and it's just three minutes of the guys looking for Christmas presents at the mall. Here are some in-progress animation frames and backgrounds. Like I think I mentioned in the last post, rushing the backgrounds was crucial to getting it out with enough time before Christmas - I can animate pretty quick but it's ...
2024-12-10 21:59:53 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm working on a long-delayed very small Christmas episode of Sublo and Tangy Mustard! It's nothing big, just a couple of minutes of the boys talking shit while they shop for presents at the mall. We recorded this one way back for the second batch of episodes, but each year I kept either not having time to get it done by Christmas, or feeling like other episodes took priority... And really I still don't have time to do it this year either, so it'll be a little challenge for myself. This is ob...
2024-12-04 20:43:22 +0000 UTC View Post