When I first started working on Turkey Pinky Pants, I wish that I had a firmer grasp of all of the tasks and how long they all took to put together a cartoon episode. While the work was and IS exciting and an unmitigated joy, I put a premium on being organized and keeping my client informed of upcoming costs and timelines.
As a part of our series about “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became An Artist” I had the pleasure of interviewing Brad Krause.
Brad Krause is the talented director of Turkey Pinky Pants. His multifaceted duties include character animation, writing, directing, and everything else required by a project of this scope.
After serving in the U.S. Army, Brad earned his BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. Brad worked as a graphic production artist until he gave up his airbrush, purchased his first computer, and worked as a designer and illustrator in local advertising agencies. In 2004, Brad launched Radiance Media, which has become the premier provider of 3D illustration and animation in the Milwaukee area. He has also served as an adjunct professor at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design where he taught industrial, medical, and character animation.
When Emmanuel Sampene contacted Brad in 2022 with the idea of Turkey Pinky Pants, Brad was immediately hooked, and his extensive skill set was a perfect match. Since then, Brad has immersed himself in the series, which he considers a soul-satisfying “dream” project.
Self-taught in a wide variety of programs, such as LightWave, Maya, Cinema 4d, and Blender, Brad can also produce crisp, realistic, distinctive, professional-level traditional illustrations in pencil, oil, watercolor, pen and ink, acrylic, and more. In his free time, Brad creates fine art and craftsman-style oak furniture, and is an avid mountain climber.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I was the black sheep of a family of 5 in the Detroit, Michigan area. I struggled mightily with untreated ADD and parental neglect all through school and the US Army, until I finally graduated with a BFA at 27. Gradually, I developed tools and attitudes to deal with the ADD. Now, 15 jobs, 1 marriage and 3 kids later, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. My work is consistently at a level of quality I have always strove for, I am extremely happily married, and I have clients and work partners that are second to none.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
After graduating with a BFA in graphic design in 1998, I essentially had to learn career skills that were only tangential to what I really wanted to do, which was Illustration. So, not being very adept ad graphic design, I spent much of the 1990’s at the dregs of graphic design, a graphic production artist. They are the ones who take the actual graphic design from someone else and make, for example, 4 different flavor versions, 3 different sizes, etc, etc. Basically, maintaining graphic standards for versions of the actual graphic design.
But I was an early adopter of 3d programs, starting around 1996. And these abilities allowed me to get positions not only doing graphic design, but also product illustration; essentially replacing product photography. For a solid 10 years, I was just about the only person doing this in the Milwaukee area.
Using my 2nd 3d program, LightWave 3d, I studies the animation half of the program. It was with the product illustration skill and the 3d animation skills that I was able to go freelance in 2004. I have been mostly freelance ever since, and have added numerous skills to my portfolio.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I would have to say that Turkey Pinky Pants is the most interesting thing that has happened in my career.
Since I went freelance, it’s amazing to me that, compared to sitting in someone else’s office, things just happen. You call a company, and you end up having a working relationship decades long. Or, in the case of Turkey Pinky Pants, someone just calls you out of the blue, and you get to work on the most unlikely and incredibly fulfilling project in your life.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
I have been able to work for quite large corporations, most notably G. E. Medical and Briggs & Stratton, via one of my best clients, iLevel Media.
I still work for local companies like Kenco Label and Naveo and Mirai Media and, via a local freelancer Jenn Kippert, for Carmex and Zyn beverage, mostly doing product imagery in 3d. But here is where I have to reiterate that it is Turkey Pinky Pants that is a professional and creative dream-come-true.
Who are some of the most interesting people you have interacted with? What was that like? Do you have any stories?
I don’t kiss and tell. But I do have a little bit of wizzy-wizzy wisdom for you. People go from being freelancers to business owners for one of three reasons. The first, why I did it, was because of the work: I couldn’t get the kind of work doing what I’m best at elsewhere in this location. The second is for the money: They feel they can make better money as a business owner. But the third is because of a personality issue: They can’t seem to get along with other people at work, so they start their own business in order to be the boss and behave any way they want to. It’s that last 1/3 you have to watch out for. There are a lot of earnest people out there. There are a lot of ambitious people out there. And then there are a lot out there with serious issues who can do you harm. Being a freelancer or business owner means navigating people.
Where do you draw inspiration from? Can you share a story about that?
Oh, I get inspired very, VERY easily! When someone comes to me and asks “Can you do this thing like this with this and in this way”, I get inspired to make that thing for them. I look at a cloud, and I get inspired to literally paint a cloud. I get sent an announcement for an art contest, I get inspired to enter it. I see a mess, I get inspired to clean it up. This is the up-side of ADD. And, in the end, it’s working with people and their ideas, and the mutual support and enthusiasm that is always the most inspiring.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I don’t imagine that my art or animation is going to change the world. Change happens person-to-person.
Mostly by teaching. I mean, I literally teach my clients about what is possible and how it is done when it comes to graphics and animation. I want people who are spending money on me and my time to know exactly what they are paying for, and this will help them in the future, working on other projects with other artists, so they don’t get taken advantage of.
I’ve taught at a few colleges in SE Wisconsin. I now have an intern who is a fabulous student. I also teach drawing and painting on weekends.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
1 . When I was a teenager, I dreamed of becoming the next Frank Frazetta, Richard Corben or Möbius. I wish that a real, professional artist had taken me under their wing and given me a quick review of the professional landscape and told me what it takes to be a professional. Growing up, from just the public impressions you get, being an ‘artist’ is some guy at an easel making paintings and selling them at an art fair. I knew there was more to it than that, but I didn’t know anyone who could flesh out that landscape of information for me. So I didn’t even know what I was supposed to major in in college (which I initially dropped out of), or what I should be practicing in my free time. I had all of the ‘talents’ I needed, but none of the knowledge. Zip. None of it. With a mentor, I could have been 7 years ahead of where I am now.
2 . When I first started using LightWave 3d, I used it for 2 years before I even thought about the animation component. I had this powerhouse program, and for 2 years I ignored the part of it that would be the cornerstone of my work for the next 20 years. But I guess that’s what you get when you’re an ‘early adopter’.
3 . When I went freelance, It was perhaps 5 years before a friend and client suggested that I learn motion graphics using Adobe After Effects. This changed my life. Animation became easy! it didn’t have to be realistic, but could just be fun! And it was in much greater demand than 3d animation, partly because of the cost. I could turn out much more work in a much shorter amount of time, with no reduction in quality. After Effects is the Photoshop of animation. That program has made every aspect of every project I work on easier, and broadened my toolkit and professional offerings, increasing my income and client base.
4 . I wish that I understood all of the problems associated with teaching art before I started doing so.
First, the insular nature of art education institutions — and education institutions in general. Without a Masters degree or beyond, they will not take you seriously. You cannot have a hand in developing a broader curriculum without it.
Second, the near impossibility of bringing 20 or more people up to speed in any aspect of art that you’re teaching. There will not only be stragglers, but there will be students who simply don’t care. That part really hurt my heart. I don’t know if I can be a ‘good’ teacher if I have to leave some of them behind.
Third, the continuing impossibility of teaching the fundamentals of a profession with no agreed-upon standards of quality. In every profession, standards are the foundation of education. But in ‘fine’ art, good image making standards are mere suggestions. Very little is concrete, most of it is opinion based.
Thank goodness, in Film Making and Graphic Design, that paradigm is flipped: Standards guide most aspects, but opinion — ‘artsy’ thinking — is tolerated on the periphery.
5 . When I first started working on Turkey Pinky Pants, I wish that I had a firmer grasp of all of the tasks and how long they all took to put together a cartoon episode. While the work was and IS exciting and an unmitigated joy, I put a premium on being organized and keeping my client informed of upcoming costs and timelines.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Oh, I have an ANSWER for this one!
In the visual arts, in particular in the so-called ‘fine’ arts… 2-dimensional images, mostly made using traditional media… there is this tremendous paucity of shared understanding about what makes a ‘good’ image and what makes a ‘bad’ image.
Now, in 2024, 150 years after the revolution in visual imagery that birthed the impressionists and their virtually scientific inquiry into aspects of the nature of visual art, we have an abundance of scientific information about how and why human beings see the way we do, how we interpret it, and the language to describe it, not to mention an incredible variety of techniques and processes.
But still, no one can even approach a definition or criteria to use to describe gradations of value when judging visual art. After all of this time, all of this effort, all of this art, we cannot define the difference between amateur art and professional art. We cannot describe the elements that are necessary to make art more valuable for the human condition. Even while all of this information is readily available, testable, and even mostly agreed-upon.
If I were to start a movement, it would be a movement to bring scientific inquiry and concrete language to the question of ‘what makes art better or worse for the human condition”.
We have been blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she just might see this.
Brad Bird or either or both of the Cohen Brothers. If they could tolerate 8 hours of questions, that would be lovely.
What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
I’m a couple years past 60. So I take no shame in admitting that you can find most of my posts on Facebook. It IS still #1. But also on Instagram
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Brad Krause of Turkey Pinky Pants: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became an Artist was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.