some links, some explanations, and… some Children Kids: “Damzel & Darling”

Back in early-to-mid June, we started introducing the world to Children Kids. We told about some of our early art, design, and character explorations. We shared the fortunate fable of finding our first voice actor. We sang songs, we made plushies, we even gave you a sneak peak behind the scenes of our magical, Room of Requirements-esque squatterStudios. We introduced ourselves, introduced the show (twice: 1, 2), confessed some sins, told some stories, and then—to some degree—ran out of things to say.

To those of you who have stuck with us these months: Thank you!
To those of you who we may have lost along the way: Apologies!
We unveiled a little prematurely, we’ll give you that. Our small team perhaps underestimated the behemoth that is producing a short-length cartoon on the side of life, jobs, ailments, travels, bills, and brawls. And I’m not promising a finished piece tomorrow—a little more patience we ask of you—but Children Kids is coming along. Please keep coming back, tell your friends, tell your neighbors.
And, in the meantime…

enjoy the stories as we start to introduce you to the Children Kids:




Lovely one, and blessed, delicate, and kind, a light radiates from the one named Damzel. Whether it be scraped knee or bruised ego, Damzel will be the first at your side, dear friend, to hold your hand and cry with you when life appears to be heading south. Her blissful unawareness to her perfection is her only imperfection. All the girls of Middleton wish to be her, and all of the boys wish to be with her—much to the dismay of Damzel’s identical twin, Darling. She’ll break your heart with her eyes, only to mend it with her smile.


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Born first, remembered last, our depressed little Darling lives on, only to seek out a way to snuff out the light and life of her twin, Damzel. Identical in appearance to her sister, Darling has a warped perception of beauty and is confused as to why all her classmates flock to dear Damzel, raving of her breathtaking features, though never her own. Alas, friend, do not shed tears for Darling as she is anything but her namesake. This wicked little girl fosters a crooked soul and faded light. Darling hides away to the dark places of the mind, dreaming up mischievousness and murder, aimed toward placing her sweet sister in distress.


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Each day we’ll try to bring you another character’s story, a drawing of the character, and—as of yet missing on this post—a picture of a plushie inspired by each character, as well as a link to purchase said plushie. They’re great! Come back for more.

something to see!

about a month ago we were working on a proposal and came up with a relatively concise and appealing description of what children kids is. and then a couple weeks later, BERK left us for ComicCon. So while he was gone, the rest of us decided to throw the above-mentioned description with some music and art. It was supposed to be a weekend activity. It took us a few weeks. That's the speed we work at here in squatterStudios. We don't do nothin if we don't do it right and take 5x longer doing it than originally expected.
At any rate…

THE CHILDREN KIDS!

go on, check it out!! i don't just use exclamation points and all-caps all willy-nilly like this for no reason. enjoy~!

thanks to dane for programming the page and analisa for the AE work.

Class is in session

a rough sketch of a classroom at Middleton’s School for Miniatures.

Even though summer is in full swing, Squatter Studios has been hard at work on this little gem of a cartoon. So hard that it's turning in to more of an entire world rather than a 3-5 minute cartoon episode. And we've neglected the blog :(

We solemnly recommit ourselves to keeping you in on the Children Kids world. To seal the deal and make it official, we're inviting you to come play with us.

We've had lots of inquiries about how people can get involved. We're overwhelmed by your interest and pleased as punch by your generosity and we are ready and willing to accept.

The only catch is that we are asking you to be creative in your contributions. It's easy for us to say we need as much illustration and animation help as possible (which is 100% true and definitely an open invitation to anyone able and interested), but the possibilities are endless!

So think about who you are, what you can do and what you'd like to share with Children Kids and then let us know!

We are having our first Children Kids Team meeting on Monday at 6 PM at the Amanda Knight Hall on the south end of BYU's campus. We are getting our existing volunteer team organized and eating food together. RSVP by comment.