Otto Grillo

There’s nothing like having a client with a sense of humor. You'd think a cartoon company would have more than a few of those wouldn't you? Not true.

Otto Otter is a character that we developed for Irvine Auto Center in Orange County. He looks like this:

We've been working on a standee design for the client. After delivering several sketches of Otto, whom we've been animating for almost a year, we got an email from our client announcing that they wanted to take the character in another direction. Uggghh....

This was the preliminary sketch they sent.

Crazy so-and-so lifted it from my email signature. Horrific to see your own head on a beloved mascot. Here's how he looks in real life:

I don't care what you say - it's awesome having one of your creations walking around out there, shaking hands with little kids, lifting his leg on the sidewalk.

We love those guys over at – oh wait, the last time we mentioned this client’s name on an industry blog, they were flooded with calls from animation studios looking to undercut Flinch. Nice try guys – nobody is stupid enough to work as cheaply as we do! But just in case you are… I'll just call him "Mike". Good guy, Mike.