First Kickstarter Rewards Out!

Dear Reader,

The Squirrel King just hit a major milestone: our first Kickstarter rewards are in the mail! Kickstarter backers who ordered stickers, keep your eyes open :)

It feels so good to finally be physically sharing our rewards with our wonderful supporters!

For those of you who ordered kits, stay tuned, acorns are almost in California and the kits are becoming more real every day! There's still time to pre-order on this site for those who missed out :)

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Freshly Squeezed!

Dear Reader,

There's nothing quite like the joy that freshly squeezed orange juice can bring, and yesterday Alien Two took fresh to a new level with the inspired idea of simply slipping a straw into her clementine :)


It's nice to see creativity blossoming :)

Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy some family time of your own!

Chin chin Ruthless Whims

Inspiration in Technique

Dear Reader,

Sometimes the behind the scenes work on animation can be even more inspiring than the final product. There's an ad running in England right now which fits that bill. Here's a review of that ad written by my cousin, including pics from the behind the scenes. And here's a little video:


Personally I think the ad would have been even more powerful if when watching we were aware of the technique behind it ... I guess that's what I like so much about Aardman :)

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Great Balls of Yarn

Dear Reader,

Remember those tiny stickers that arrived a few weeks ago? Well they're starting to find homes on the little balls of yarn that come in our kits!

A lot have been rolled ... and a lot more rolling is still to come :)

Meanwhile the hoola-hooping squirrels that sit on my desk have been looking on hopefully that more friends will soon spring from the scraps ... and they might just be in luck as I turn on our high powered die-cutter today and try digitally cutting limbs for the first time! Stay tuned :)

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

PS Great excitement in other departments ... our molded pulp acorns are on a truck!!

Big View from Olloclip!

Dear Reader,

The other day I heard about a Kickstarter campaign for a lens attachment for the iphone, the Olloclip. Well like our Kickstarter campaign, theirs was already over too. On the bright side, Olloclip now has a site where you can now order it yourself.

And look at the fun the squirrels and I have been having with it!

The 4-in-1 attachment has a wide angle, a fish eye and two macros! The possibilities are endless :)

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

The Mustache Dache!

Dear Reader,

As the sun rose on the weekend Squirrel King headquarters was devoted to the 'stache (and the fight against prostrate cancer)!




Bump pink pipe cleaners found a new use and on the trek to the start the Alien found some fine pre-race food!

At the start we found Elvis, aka Tom - The Squirrel King's magnificent cinematographer. And then we were off!

Shooting out of the gate Alien Two took out second place in her first road race. In the under 12's!!

Alien One was a close third and they shared the podium :)


A great day was had by all and even the clouds came out to support the event!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Inspiration for The World of Dreams

Dear Reader,

In life it's often useful to percolate something important in the background. Work on The Squirrel King is quite like life :) While we've been very focused on our squirrel kits, I wanted to let you know we have not forgotten our work on the series that inspired them. Indeed here's a clip we came across recently that has inspired our vision for the World of Dreams!


I simply love the feeling of scope this clip has. Of course we'll be quite a bit more colorful! ... except maybe when the black void that's blotting out humanity's dreams starts enveloping the World of Dreams.

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

PS To read about all the latest on the kits, check out yesterday's Kickstarter update :)