Get Happy
As a kid, I was raised on old cartoons like “Looney Tunes” and all the Hanna-Barbera stuff like “The Jetsons” and “The Flintstones.” As a teenager in the 1990s, I discovered and was drawn to the work of graffiti/pop artist Keith Haring. This animation was inspired by Haring’s work and the old-school, low-fidelity charm of cartoons from the 1980s.
Case Study
As I mentioned above, this piece was inspired by Keith Haring’s amazing paintings, graffiti, and illustrations.
In 2022, I received an anthology of Haring’s work as a Christmas gift. The cover of the book featured an incredible illustration (right) of a smiling cartoon face with three eyes. That face inspired me to create something similar with this piece.
I really liked how Haring’s illustration showed a cartoon face that looked as if it was barely contained by the square frame around it. Like it almost was trying to escape from the canvas into the real world. I wanted to try and match that feeling with my animation.
One of my favorite elements of Haring’s work is how it often spoke directly to viewers to convey social and political messages (“Crack is Wack,” for example). I figured the most simple way for my piece to “speak” to viewers was to have one of the eyes wink at them. To me, it is a subtle way to acknowledge a viewer’s attention while also inviting them into the little make-believe world this character exists within.
I also wanted to find a way to add in a retro-looking sparkle somewhere in the piece, so I decided to give the face a big, shiny gold front tooth that would sparkle at the viewer whenever the eye winked.
To finish the piece I added some grungy textures over top of the animation to emulate the grain and imperfections that appear on older cartoon animations.
