Nate Theis does eCards for JibJab

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on

Way back in March 2009, we told you to keep an eye on animator Nate Theis. One person who took our advice was Evan Spiridellis at JibJab, who contacted the animator after reading Amid’s original post. Evan says:

“I was so impressed with his work that I reached out to him, explained how we were really trying to give our ecards some class and style by bringing amazing artists to it. He just emailed some storyboards and we were off.”

Above and below are Nate’s first two Birthday ecards for JibJab and they are just as funny and stylish as his past films. I want more!

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  • http://www.wardjenkins.com Ward

    Ahh man, these are brilliant!

  • psychomar

    why didn’t he eat the cow? he ate everything, but he merely milked the cow and put it back. I’m so confused.

  • http://jaggedsmile.wordpress.com jaggedsmile

    These are great! Nice to see JibJab is willing to venture into new directions with their animation styles. And Theis has nailed it with his simple, powerful gags and character design!

  • Michael DiMilo

    Thanks for sharing more great work from Nate Theis! Now why aren’t there Saturday morning cartoons like this?

  • Andreas

    excellent. now that’s animation.

  • http://unlearningartschool.blogspot.com Geneva

    These are wonderful!! I’ve never seen little sendable things like this! Great work, Nate, and good move, JibJab!

  • Mitch Kennedy

    Those are awesome!

  • Mark

    Fantastic! Thank goodness for Nate and Evan. Great stuff.

  • Brad Constantine

    Great Stuff! Thanks fer sharing!

  • skid

    These are great!

  • Paul N

    I routinely send JibJab cards, and while I haven’t sent these yet, I’ve seriously thought about it. Great work.

  • samster

    nice enough! :)

  • http://jamiegallant.blogspot.com Jamie Gallant

    Hilarious! Great work, Nate.

  • amid

    Designs that are funny before they even move, appealing movement and brilliant timing. I’m delighted that somebody is paying him to create more work.

  • http://www.taberanimation.com Taber Dunipace

    Very funny work! Love the “modern” UPA type style.

  • Roberto Severino

    I’m not really a JibJab fan, but these are really funny and cool. I think the great Grim Natwick did some UPA influenced drawings that kinda looked like this.

  • fishmorgjp

    They look funny, they move funny… cool!

  • Pedro Nakama

    Nice. Any word on which software was used? Flash?

  • http://www.natetheis.com Nate

    Thanks for all the great comments! I’m glad people like the cards.

    Pedro – I do all the animation in Flash with a Cintiq, making sure to keep every element on a separate layer. Then I put everything together in After Effects and add textures.

  • bob kurtz

    funny stuff!!!!! reminds me of fred crippen’s work.

  • POWERMAN

    Luks great. hopefully no investor/ producer/ etc/etc.

    will change your wonderful ideas and work but that’s

    like asking can we live in a perfect world please

  • Joy

    Those animations were awesome! It has that retro feel to it.
    That’s really cool how you animated something in Flash & then took it into after effects & made it look like it’s an old cartoon that was made back in the 60′s or 70′s.

    Very well done Mr. Theis!

  • http://www.comicrazys.com Chris

    WOW!!! Really great cartoons! I was watching the Jimmy John’s spots on Nate’s site. If anyone can revive Roger Ramjet it’s NATE!!!

  • http://hobofish.blogspot.com/ mike moloney

    those are great! I really loved the Jimmy John’s commercials on your site. They had great gags/sfx/cutting. Really clever fun work!!!

  • http://www.bigalrock.blogspot.com AL

    These are really great from design to animation, timing & color…
    Great style & posing too, nice work all around..!

  • http://www.stevelightart.com Steve Light

    Those guys at JibJab are great! They had some really cool Horoscope stuff when they first started!!