TenNapel

Doug TenNapel, an animator, musician, author, essayist, Eisner Award-winning artist and full time Christian is someone who, for the most part of my later years in life, is someone who I've aspired too.

Most people know Doug through the iconic character, Earthworm Jim a series which started off as a game and soon became a 90's Saturday Morning cartoon which shared allot of traits with that of the game itself, both were never too serious and completely out there in terms of creativity, character designs were also outstanding and unique, comprising of different body types, structures, shapes and exterior personality, what's interesting to note is that the character's of Earthworm Jim, Psycrow, Evil the Cat and almost every other character, was that Doug produced all of them within an hour or so and that in itself is worth bragging about. 

What am I getting at? To be honest, I wish I knew. This is just a student showing his appreciation towards an animator who offered something, idea's, inspiration, style and technique, too often people people aspire towards the well known, I won't deny that I've praised the work of Chuck Jones, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera until I was blue in the face, but I praise them for a reason and it's the same reason I praise TenNapel, because what he offers is a form of escapism, world's which are so alike yet abstract that you can really delve into them and explore them whether it be the world of The Neverhood, Gear, Earthworm Jim, Creature Tech, Zoo, which ever one you pick up, granted it will be different from the other, even in the slightest detail. 

What I particularly love about TenNapel's work, both old and new, is the use of colour and how it's applied, with the conceptual art of Earthworm Jim in particular, TenNapel portrayed his character's beautifully through means of simplistic cartoon shapes with impeccable attention to detail with colour giving a two dimensional character, that sense that it's in three dimensional space. The use of colour in general is, I think really well done in anycase, vibrant, bold but easy on the eye. Nice. It's TenNapel's work which has for a long time, inspired the exterior creation of my character's, making a character speak for them self instead of it consisting of big eyes, spiky hair and another generic Eastern culture voice but that's a rant for another time. I may add more to this little article later on and definitely will do more consisting of other artist's which, well, I aspire too. 

If by some weird turn of events Doug DOES read this... 

I love you.