My work from the last six months has continued with themes from my senior collection such as topography and mapping, and has introduced investigations into memory, personal relationships and how I spend my time.

If you are in the Indiana area, you can view my new work starting on the 15th at the MFA Exhibition in the Grunwald Gallery of Art.

It’s been a long while since our last update because the company has spent the last two months relocating to Los Angeles! Not surprisingly, this is far from a simple process. But this means a lot of great things for the studio, including:

• We are now much closer to many screenings and award shows that will be featuring “The Girl and the Fox.”
• Tyler and Nate are reunited in the same city, expediting the process of completing our next film “Rain Dance.”
• The Annie Awards are this weekend and we’ll have several crew members attending.
• Most importantly we are now in the heart of the animation industry, where we can network, recruit and work with best best and brightest in this amazing art form!

It’s the biggest step for Base14 yet, and I couldn’t be happier. We all knew we’d get here eventually; honestly I’m a bit surprised it took this long. But now we’re settled in and here to stay. Hello, L.A.!

Well the time has arrived to announce the official world premiere of “The Girl and the Fox,” since as it is only two weeks away! Already we have been accepted to a few festivals, but it turns out that the Citrus Cel Animation Film Festival will be the first one out of the gates. A big event for animation enthusiasts across the South,  the Citrus Cel Animation Film Festival will be held in Jacksonville, Florida, April 8th through the 10th.

“The Girl and the Fox” will be showing as part of the Tangerine Dreams showcase, which features animation that deals with the fantastic and supernatural, and will take place Saturday, April 9th at 4:00pm in the 5 Points Theatre in Jacksonville. I would be there to see the premiere in person if I wasn’t already spending that weekend in Los Angeles for the College Television Awards! But if you’ll be in or around Florida that weekend, be sure to stop by and support a great animation event!

To go along with the announcement, I’ve relaunched the Base14 Tour Page, which will track and display every festival that “The Girl and the Fox” visits. I’ll be updating it regularly as more festivals get back to us, so be sure to watch for a screening near you sometime in the next year!

A year ago today I drew this celebratory Pi Day greeting. It was the beginning of what is now an obsession with random, poorly illustrated messages of endearment and goofiness that I feel the need to occasionally bestow upon those who are most important to me. And you, my loyal blog reader, are a person of utmost importance to me. pIe Love you!

While I spend the large majority of my time these days making animated films, Alysha has really been broadening her range of expertise. Why, just this morning she was featured on the Purdue University website as one of five “Purdue Culture Makers.” Wow!

The entire series is about showing how smart and creative the students at Purdue can be, and of course Alysha was a perfect candidate for such a profile. In the article she discusses why she chose the Purdue Apparel Design program, what has inspired her during her education, her big senior collection due out this Spring and her ambitions for the future. She even gives a very nice plug for Base14, which includes a link to us right from the web page! That’s better publicity than I got during my four years in West Lafayette! Also, if you look closely at the main photo, Alysha is sporting the amazing ceramic ring she made of Baru from “The Girl and the Fox.” That’s proof of the symbiosis that Alysha and I have between our creative endeavors. As she says in the article: “His creativity inspires mine and vice versa.”

We’re always better together, sis! Congratulations on the write-up and keep that culture coming!

A big thanks to my beautiful model May. I really wish she would come to visit me more often.

“Base14 Logo Tee” Sold by PayPal

$10.00 USD

Size:

Small Medium Large X-Large

And bingo! I got the gig (hopefully thanks in part to my large amount of experience blogging here at Base14.) So for the next month, I’ll be churning out blog posts not only for Base14 but also the “Voices of the Fest” section of the SFF website. Go ahead and check out my first post published today!

I’ve also opened up my personal Twitter account with plans to use it as a stream of updates for my blog presence at the festival. This way people can know where I am and what I’m doing instantaneously throughout the week. So join up and follow along as I take you on a private tour of the entire festival! Should one helluva ride!

Ah, there’s nothing quite like a bit of a makeover when things are beginning to feel stagnant. And thanks for the fine folks over at WordPress, the Base14 Blog got just that sort of new infusion with a fresh installation of WordPress 3.0! (We had been running on 2.6 for some time.) Of course, you folks on the outside won’t notice much of a change just yet, but the tools we use to publish blog posts and manage content just got a lot slicker.

June was a relatively quiet time for Base14, I realize. We were recouping from production on “The Girl and the Fox” and have been preparing for the launch of the Base14 Store later this year. This upgrade to our content management system is just the first step in making a new, full-fledged storefront that will finally make our lovely creative products easily accessible and available to purchase!

Since July, anyone trying to access my online portfolio at www.tylerkupferer.com probably noticed that the URL would redirect them to the Base14 Blog. This is because what was a stunning accomplishment of amateur web design and development when it was launched in 2005 had long outlasted its welcome and needed to be replaced. The site was a pit of stagnation, featuring videos and illustrations way below my current abilities and being far too much trouble to update. What was needed was a complete redesign, and while I had been toying with some fancy flash interfaces since 2008, it was all asking for more trouble than it was worth.

But with my name getting around in the festival circuit and employment opportunities looming, I realized that I needed something that could at the very least show my demo reel and link to my resume. So I went back to the drawing board and designed something that would be clean, neat and super, super simple. Presenting: TJK Homepage 3.0.

While designing the mockup took a few days, coding the site itself only took one evening. The entire site is very simple, but effective. And it was actually pretty fun to make. I may be out of the professional web development industry, but few things make me happier than some sharp, clean and efficient CSS code.

P.S. The first item in my reel is a piece of rough animation from The Girl and the Fox. Be excited!

Remember: food is eaten through the mouth, often with cranberry sauce this time of year.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!