Deck the Whales: Shepherd's Spin on Holiday Classics

What’s the best part of the holiday season? Is it the food? Nope. Is it the gifts? Also no. Is it Uncle Jim falling asleep on the couch while still holding a full plate of food? Maybe, but we tend to think it’s the cartoons playing on the TV that Uncle Jim falls asleep in front of. We love those holiday classic cartoons so much that we made our own.

Deck the Whales, a story about a penguin who creates a tree from nothing, is a feel-good spin on a tradition that’s riddled with our favorite pop culture references.

“We intentionally went with a more traditional animation approach to get an old-school effect, and it also adds a special richness to the story,” says Motion Editor Charlie Bodge who animated and illustrated the video.

The team worked frame by frame, creating a total of 1,700 frames – 1,200 of which are unique cells. While the piece was easily influenced by the obvious classics, Bodge says his artwork was inspired by his favorite cartoon at the time: Steven Universe.

We don’t think this is the last you’ll be seeing of Dom and Perry, and we definitely recommend staying tuned to find out.