Animalistic presents: Questo's World

By Mike Lewis

09-05-21

Animalistic presents: Questo's World

Starring: Questo

Featuring: Gretchen Amor

By Mike Lewis

08-05-21

The first official Questo's World comic strip by Mike Lewis

04-02-21

© April 2021

"Quackology"

 https://vimeo.com/514354708

Directed By: Mike Lewis

Written By: Mike Lewis

Animated By: Mike Lewis

Release date: February 19th, 2021

My second short film/project with some more experimental art style and characteristics of an idea of I have for a full-length series. This one took almost a whole year to complete unlike the previous one I released, which took a whole month.

This film "Quackology", features one of my other original creations I had around for quite along time. The Quackston Brothers, a dysfunctional pair of duck brothers sharing a house together, living on their own and are each neurotic and unhappy in their own way, but Lucky, the peacemaker, try to do everything he can to keep his family together. They seems to have more complex characterization in comparison to my other main character, though, in spite of the slightly dark and sadder story of this one particular short, much of the brothers' conflicting personalities can be comedic as well as sad.

Part of the concept I've had for a series I can't wait to make in the future, "
Quackology" follows the psychologically-driven concept of my original show idea.

Anyways, meet The Quackston Brothers, the youngest Lucky (blue), the middle child Plucky (gray/blue) and the eldest bro, Tuffy (green).

Junior's Inquistive Questo

 

My official short film and character presentation I've been doing for 6 weeks, based on my oldest and first ever creation. Junior B. Shorthair (now named Questo), who I’ve created at age 12. When you watch this film, you will be able to see and understand my show (Animalistic) style of satire and Junior’s character. Most of what happens in the film comes from my own experience as a naive but somewhat observant and hopelessly curious youth surrounded in a world of stuck-up, self-righteous, cynical, shallow, close-minded, slow-witted and hypocritical adults. The short you’re seeing are abstract resembles on how we get different answers in return, in an artistic and satirical way, and also emphasizes on critical thinking and intellectual curiosity. As I grew older, I became interested in having animation and cartoons being viewed and reminded as an art form, and for people to treat them as such. This short I also created as a satirical social commentary, and a visual social satire, lampooning the “close-minded, shallow, opinionated prescriptive of the society and the adult world” and how children are being raised under the system of education, society, technology and consumerism, but through it’s satire carries a moral, which is something I want to do with most episodes focusing on Junior. Inspiration for the short’s style comes from Alex Lovy’s Norman Normal, Chuck Jones’s Now Hear This, Pixar short films and UPA. There’s no sound for the cartoon yet and I hope to get film festival and/or network executives attention. I have more pilots on the way. This is my first time animating with the Toon Boom Harmony Advanced that I’ve been getting use to for the past 4 months, though I couldn’t figure out how to zoom the camera in the way I wanted to. Also, unfortunately, the quality of the short isn’t the way it is so there might be some distortion. There we’re some deleted scenes in the short where one of the question mark doors contains a computer and another one containing a barrel toxic waste. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

Preface

Last updated: August 14th, 2024 - 4:09pm

Hi, I'am Mike Lewis. Long-time self-taught artist, doing illustration, painting, animation and cartooning, while also investing in the stock market, reading books and traveler.

                                     (an image that should give you a good idea of what I'm like)

My purpose in life is create art. Not just art, true art. Pretentious, I know. 

• Mike's History

I've been drawing for as long as I can remember, been fascinated and obsessed with drawing and anything to do with it from a very young age.

Been wanting to do my own cartoons thanks to classic animation like Tom & Jerry, Tex Avery, Disney, Looney Tunes, Fleischer, UPA and Hanna-Barbera. 

Around 2011, I began to animate on Nintendo DSi's Flipnote Studios, learning more and more about the process of animation through self-education and reading and watching videos:

https://vimeo.com/943485795

In the late 2010s, my influences started to expand and became interested in other forms of media, such as illustration, painting and comics.

I started to branch out to using Toon Boom Harmony where I animated two pilots for potential series, "Junior's Inquisitive Quest" and "Quackology", both originally intended to co-exist as a series collectively named Animalistic, but things changed afterwards.

With the help of the now-defunct Sony's Sketch app, I developed the Questo's World comic as a spin-off of the "Junior's Inquisitive Quest" pilot, founding my new found love of webcomics that I still doing to this day.

Expanding into other mediums helped me realized how much advantage and opportunities I had on my hands.

A moment in time in the mid-2022, I bought some painting supplies, but didn't really get into painting until much later that same year. I originally wanted to watercolor as a way to blow off steam, but eventually wanted to use my own unique style to simple acrylic painting and eventually decided to do an art business, which I became very thankful for.

Six of my favorite selected paintings

                               Paintings I did for family members

Anyways, this is all what lead to Mike's Arthouse:

Slightly new logo and background done in 2024

I do everything, from filmmaking, painting and illustrating. My one goal in all of these is one (two?) simple term: "self-expression"!

Sincerely

Mike Lewis