Meet Sham

There's no way around it - Sham is a crankypants. He complains often, gets snippy with his friends, and is usually in a grumpy mood. Despite his generally surly demeanor, Sham is an important part of the Jabloo crew, and his friends still want him around.

Sham is a doubter, and he doubts himself most of all. When one of his friends has an idea for a game, a project, or an adventure, Sham is often the one who speaks up against their idea, and has to be persuaded to change his mind and participate. Once he's joined in, however, Sham is likely to reluctantly admit that he's having fun - and might even say that he was wrong to complain in the first place.

Sham's passion is music, and his favorite genre is orchestral music. This is because Sham plays the trombone, and though he's still learning, he's able to play quite well. He especially loves doing loud slides on the instrument, which he will sometimes use to punctuate one of his friends' comments or actions. It takes some effort, but Sham tends to warm up to a situation once his initial concerns have been overcome, and he can relax and enjoy being part of the group's activities.

The Cast

Here's the cast of Jabloo, hanging out inside a tent on their first adventure, "The Camp Out."

On a technical note, when I began rendering the characters, I decided to keep them almost completely free of any type of photographic effects - so the faces each have a slight edge highlight, and the eyes contain radial gradients – but other than that, the characters are pretty darn flat. Their shadows are tints (and simple oval shapes), and, except for elements like skies, which will be gradients, the backgrounds will also be mostly solid shapes.

The linework is semi-loose - these are vector-based characters, so the outlines don't have the fluidity of a true ink outline, but they're dynamic and varied enough to give some life to the characters, props, and background elements.

That's it for now. When the site launches and the first cartoon is viewable, you'll be able to see just why they're in a tent!