David Ferguson’s Animated Shorts

By
on

Adventure Time creator Pen Ward recently turned me on to the work of Glasgow-based animator David Ferguson, who posts his work at SwatPaz.net. “I don’t know why this guy’s youtube videos aren’t more popular,” says Pen. “I love ‘em.” Personally, I think they’re amusing too. There’s lots of good ideas in Ferguson’s work, and the naive animation and borderline incomprehensible Scottish accent only add to the fun. David has a whole slew of short absurdist pieces on his YouTube page, as well as more random jollities on his website including this page of “cool characters.”

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  • Charles

    its pretty hard to get noticed on youtube. especially when it comes to animation.

  • mike

    these are brilliant! i love em.

  • http://www.daganm.blogspot.com Dagan

    super-good!!!

    Very funny stuff. Short-and-sweet.
    Love the way the BG’s are handled too… and great color!

  • christy

    hahaha these rule!

  • Sara

    These are amazing! Wee Potata face! A really unique talent..

  • mickhyperion

    Why can’t people who make 2D cartoons learn to draw? These character designs and backgrounds are horrible. Visual garbage.

  • http://crikeyboy.blogspot.com/ Chris Kennett

    I love this guy.

  • William H

    More than half the charm is the Scottish accent. Just sayin’.

  • http://pedroeboli.blogspot.com Pedro E.

    Oh, man. I’ve been loving these shorts for a while now, and I can honestly say that “Terry Runders Kicks a Stone” is one of the funniest bits of nonsense I’ve ever seen in my life.

    It should get an Oscar or something. Or maybe some fish sticks.

  • http://www.elliotelliotelliot.com Elliot Cowan

    Mickhyperion.
    I should like to defend the work of Ferguson here.
    Obviously it’s a matter of taste, but I think it’s brilliant (and I’m very particular about these things).

  • christy

    “Why can’t people who make 2D cartoons learn to draw? These character designs and backgrounds are horrible. Visual garbage.”

    you must of caught me cranky before i’ve had my morning coffee but whats with you nerds who are obsessed with people ‘learning to draw’? he can draw! those drawings are great. i love jon K and looney toons and i can totally appreciate fine draftsmanship, the principals of animation, blah, blah, but everything shouldn’t look the same. the world would be a boring place if every animation and painting and movie was the same. these drawings have a style and sensibility that is unique and funny.
    your comment makes me remember the post of that WB mural of superheros posted a while back-i almost commented on it after i read all the comments that said ‘wow! looks great!’ but i didn’t want to piss on peoples parade but all i was thinking when i saw it was that it looked like it was cut and pasted out of a style guide meant for executives at WB. It just seemed like recycled foreshortened superhero poses. They had this huge blank canvas of a wall and that was the most interesting thing they came up with? it wasn’t ‘dynamic’ or interesting-it was characters pasted on the wall. (i know you might argue it’s a billboard and the characters need to be bold and visible/recognizable from afar) my point is that, while whoever drew that obviously knows how to draw, the end product wasn’t any better for it. By the way im a total nerd who loves comics and animation but that thing was just stale, uninspired and lame. not to mention the weirdness of the looney toons characters pasted on like an afterthought.
    anyways, i don’t mean to be preachy or get all crazy or go off on that mural but there’s room for lots of different styles and sensibilities, not just ‘good drawings’ which is such a subjective term and i think something regurgitated mindlessly often by people in animation who love jon k and that school of thought. i love jon K and think he’s amazing but i also love other stuff that doesn’t look like his stuff like bakshi, and vince collins, and henry darger, and tim and eric, and jonal odell, and the hubleys, and even anime (wow-people can like stuff that’s different?) its something that’s always bothered me about animators-they seem to often belong to one ‘camp’. its like music-do you know anyone who’s not a complete bone head who ONLY likes one style of music? most people like a few different styles for different reasons.
    also, that guy is some one making shorts, he has a website, he’s making stuff. doesn’t mean anyone has to like it but i respect someone for making and creating something of their own.
    and finally what i think doesn’t really matter because in the end all of this is totally subjective anyways.

  • http://robindavey.blogspot.com/ robin

    I’ve been a fan of this guy since I saw his stuff posted on the Drawn! blog I think it was. Great funny ideas, imaginatively handled. Fantastic timing too (just check out Living Room Telly). They’re too good for Youtube.

    Oh and I’m dying to know what mickhyperion considers good design. Enlighten us, please. Should we all still be tracing Preston Blair?

  • http://www.petercampofiori.com/ Peter Campofiori

    I agree with christy that these guys do deserve some respect for making and creating something of their own. But I see where mickhyperion is coming from with his view (which I happen to agree with). We’re lowering the bar for what is funny and what we should expect in the quality of drawings in these animated shorts.

  • http://zeteos.blogspot.com/ mick

    This guy is great. he needs to just do more simply to amuse me.
    I think pretty much these shorts are solid in every respect. the style the sound the gags (if they can be called that) all go together like machu pichu stone work.
    It is true that youtube is clogged with shit and this lad really should have more of a following. i have seen an 8 second animation of a single fart with 80,000 views so i imagine that the audience on youtube are not the most discerning.

    I say hurray for swatpaz

    oh and… ‘borderline incomprehensible Scottish accent’ … shame on you. he speaks very clearly

  • http://zeteos.blogspot.com/ mick

    hold up sorry… I just saw this part

    ‘We’re lowering the bar for what is funny and what we should expect in the quality of drawings in these animated shorts.’

    there are a great many rubbish art and zero humour shorts out there. As for lowering the bar I would say that these ones in question here are pure whimsy… if we would like to talk about lowering the bar in comedy take a look at almost every cartoon on TV (except spongebob) and every american sitcom since (and including) cheers. i agree the bar is being lowered but not by this lad

  • http://www.mukpuddy.blogspot.com mukpuddy

    We’re completely addicted to Swazpat!! Love all his stuff!!

  • http://www.elliotelliotelliot.com Elliot Cowan

    I agree with Mick and usually do.