Daniel James Bandit (born Daniel Rogers James;
[ August 14, 1980), better known as Ghostshrimp, is an American ]graphic artist
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, p ...
, animator and illustrator. His illustration work has appeared in ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', and on many album covers, including the MF DOOM
Daniel Dumile ( ; July 13, 1971October 31, 2020), best known by his stage name MF Doom or simply Doom (both stylized in all caps), was a British-American rapper and record producer. Noted for his intricate wordplay, signature metal mask, and ...
and Bishop Nehru
Markel Ni'Jee Scott (born August 26, 1996), better known by his stage name Bishop Nehru, is an American rapper and record producer from Nanuet, New York. He also directs and edits music videos.
Career
2009–13: Early career
At age 13, Nehru ...
collaboration ''NehruvianDoom
''NehruvianDoom'' is the collaborative studio album by American hip hop duo NehruvianDoom which consists of MF DOOM and Bishop Nehru. The album was released on October 7, 2014, by Lex Records.
Background
In January 2014, during an interview wit ...
''. He is the former lead background designer for the Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...
series ''Adventure Time
''Adventure Time'' is an American fantasy animated television series created by Pendleton Ward for Cartoon Network and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television. The series follows the adventures of a boy named Finn (Jeremy Shada) and ...
''. He left midway through production of the fourth season to return to his freelance career, although he later temporarily returned to design backgrounds for the seventh season miniseries '' Stakes'' and several subsequent ninth
In music, a ninth is a compound interval consisting of an octave plus a second.
Like the second, the interval of a ninth is classified as a dissonance in common practice tonality. Since a ninth is an octave larger than a second, its ...
and tenth-season episodes. Finally, for the same channel he created in 2013 the pilot ''Mars Safari!'', which was released online as part of Cartoon Network Studios
Cartoon Network Studios is an American animation studio owned by the Warner Bros. Television Studios division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. The studio is the production arm of Cartoon Network, and started operating on ...
' shorts development program.
History
Ghostshrimp lived a self-proclaimed "Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
childhood", and he spent most of his time in the forests around his home in rural western . When his family eventually moved to seacoast New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
, the memories of the forests that he played in as a kid stayed with him and became hugely influential when he became an artist.[ Prior to moving to California, Ghostshrimp graduated from the ]Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...
, where he had studied art. After that, lived in a cabin that he had constructed himself on Mystery Mountain in New Hampshire.[.] This influenced his later ideas for the Land of Ooo, as in how he envisioned Finn and Jake's tree fort.[
In 2008, Ghostshrimp freelanced for ]Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...
, working with John Infantino to storyboard three episodes for the first season of Thurop Van Orman
Mark "Thurop" Ashton Van Orman (born April 26, 1976) is an American cartoonist, animator, voice actor, television writer, producer and director best known for being the creator of Cartoon Network's ''The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack'', in ...
's series ''The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack
''The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack'' (also known as ''The Misadventures of Flapjack'', or simply ''Flapjack'') is an American animated television series created by Thurop Van Orman for Cartoon Network. It premiered in the United States on ...
''. He eventually moved out to California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
to work full-time on the show's second season, but after completing only one episode was fired by Van Orman from the series due to disagreements with his storyboard partner, Mike Roth.[
Around this time, ''Adventure Time'' was in development and its producers had been long fretting about the series' background art. Creator ]Pendleton Ward
Ward Taylor Pendleton Johnston (born September 23, 1982), known professionally as Pendleton Ward or simply Pen Ward, is an American animator, screenwriter, producer, director, and voice actor who has worked for Cartoon Network Studios, Freder ...
wanted his series to be "fully realized", with a greater emphasis on the series' environment and setting. The crew had tried a whole variety of art styles for the background art, but nothing seemed to gel with Ward's vision.[.] Eventually, after considering Ghostshrimp's designs, the crew believed that they had found their designer; in fact, former creative director Patrick McHale
Patrick McHale VC ( ga, Pádraig Mac Céile; 1826 – 26 October 1866) was born in Killala, County Mayo and was an Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that ca ...
noted that he "was pretty much perfect".[.] Ward and McHale approached Ghostshrimp the day after he was let go from ''Flapjack'' and offered him a job on the show.[ Ghostshrimp was given free rein to design the world, and Ward told the artist to make the series look like it took "place in a 'Ghostshrimp World'".]
Ghostshrimp had taken the job at Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...
in order to save up enough money to buy a tract of land in Northern New England to build the Bandit family homestead and start a training camp for aspiring visual artists.[.] His plan eventually worked, and he left ''Adventure Time'' during production of the show's fourth season and moved into the forest of the Northeast Kingdom
The Northeast Kingdom (also, locally, "The Kingdom" and abbreviated NEK) is the northeast corner of the U.S. state of Vermont, approximately comprising Essex County, Vermont, Essex, Orleans County, Vermont, Orleans and Caledonia County, Vermont, ...
of Vermont. The inaugural session of Ghostscout Training Camp lasted from August 1 to September 1, 2012, and Ghostshrimp continues to host the 30-day training camp every August.
Ghostshrimp has returned to ''Adventure Time'' several times. The first was in March 2015, when he agreed to design backgrounds for the seventh-season miniseries " Stakes". According to his official Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
profile, he designed around 70 new pieces for the show. In later 2016 and early 2017, Ghostshrimp also revealed that he was working on new background pieces for several ninth- and tenth-season episodes, including several that comprise the show's finale.
Art style
Ghostshrimp's art style is highly idiosyncratic
An idiosyncrasy is an unusual feature of a person (though there are also other uses, see below). It can also mean an odd habit. The term is often used to express eccentricity or peculiarity. A synonym may be "quirk".
Etymology
The term "idiosyncra ...
. Fellow background artist Chris Tsirgiotis has described Ghostshrimp's art as "simple at first glance, but it’s actually very sophisticated and nuanced". Tsirgiotis has also said that Ghostshrimp "is a master at his use of pattern. He puts it in just about everything he does."
Filmography
Further reading
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References
Footnotes
Bibliography
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External links
Official website
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{{authority control
Adventure Time
1980 births
Pratt Institute alumni
American illustrators
American animators
Living people