Will Krause – Animation, Propmaking, Design, Illustration

Here’s the finished project for which I made all of those cardboard props! Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata helped take the pixellated photos of the props and costumes, and even helped out by wearing them. When I brought everything into After Effects, I had to scale Max and Ru horizontally to make them chubby enough for animation!

The rain was made by gluing construction paper raindrops to some string, and cycling through three different strands of drops (purple, light blue, and dark blue.

 

And here’s what those things look like when they’re moving:

One of the things I make at Sesame Street is graphics for some of the packages and labels that appear on the show. (And sometimes a sign for the dressing room of a guest too.)

 

These drawings were made to look as if they were drawn by Elmo. But they weren’t!

 

I make these every year. Don’t worry – I’ll remember to send one to you this year because I love you. (maybe I just don’t have your e-mail address.)

 

I’m making an interstitial for the Sundance Channel. All of the spots are themed to days of the week, and I was chosen for “Monday.” I’ll be using these props and costume pieces to make a short segment where a grandfather clock character steals peoples’ timepieces. I made most of the items out of scraps of cardboard, matboard, and wire.

 

I started drawing true stories for a new comic book. The first six will be published in the new Fakeheads Anthology (with greyscales!) You can learn more about the project over here: www.fakeheads.com

If you left click on the images they load up kinda tiny, but if you right-click and “Save link as” you can download a totally legible larger image.

 

This bicycle was rebuilt from a machine that was used the previous season. I only ended up using a few pieces from the original machine since it functioned in a very different way – the contestants needed to be hit in the face instead of the groin, so the new machine needed to be completely re-designed.

A big challenge was designing the wheel to carry the tennis balls into the tennis ball launcher, since they needed to be metered out one-by-one without binding.

 

I had fun making a system of wooden gears to operate this mini-catapult. The mechanism tightens slingshot rubber bands, and a pull-cord releases the catapult arm.

 

I’m working in the Art Department of Sesame Street, and I made plenty of letters and numbers for the 41st season. Most were made out of foamcore or blue foam, but I did make some “7’s” that I scored so that they would break apart easily when Cookie Monster chomped on them.