My Friend Blue
Portland, Oregon | Film Short
Family, Animation
Cute, lumpy dinosaurs living in apartments brought to life with stop-motion animation! That's what you could be a part of by supporting this story about an autistic child (Penny) and her friend, Blue, as he helps her navigate the overstimulating neurotypical world.
My Friend Blue
Portland, Oregon | Film Short
Family, Animation
1 Campaigns | Oregon, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $22,460 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
97 supporters | followers
Enter the amount you would like to pledge
Cute, lumpy dinosaurs living in apartments brought to life with stop-motion animation! That's what you could be a part of by supporting this story about an autistic child (Penny) and her friend, Blue, as he helps her navigate the overstimulating neurotypical world.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Hello! This is my good friend Penny, and my friends call me Blue. We're making a stop-motion animated episode of a day in Penny's life as a non-speaking autistic child, with my help as an autistic adult! With your help, we can show kids on the autism spectrum that they're not alone, and that there's a supportive, loving community of folks just like them waiting to be discovered.
This is the show creator Andrés Eduardo wishes they'd had as a kid. In the 90s, autism was spoken of in hushed tones, if at all! What little was common knowledge was often incorrect, and almost exclusively applied to autistic boys with little to no attention paid to autistic girls or nonbinary people. It was very easy in those days to feel isolated, even damaged, with a diagnosis of "autism." And in 2026, the national conversation around it is often as hostile as it was back then. But together, we can see to it that the autistic children growing up right now, just as we always have, know that there is a place for them in the world to thrive and find happiness.
There's a ton of cool rewards you can earn by supporting us on our way to make "The Snack," an episode in which Penny uses her communication cards to let Blue know what she does and doesn't like about certain kinds of food. Representation is super important for kiddos who are still figuring out how the world works, and even for us grown-ups! We've got stickers, a making-of PDF and book, a spot in the credits, and of COURSE plushies of Penny and Blue themselves :)
Our team has decades of combined experience on stop-motion films and shows like Guillermo del Toro's "Pinocchio", "The Tiny Chef Show", "Wendell and Wild", "Wildwood", "In the Know" and more. Overcast is an animation collective with top-tier storyboard artists, character designers, fabricators, set dressers, animators, producers, and visual effects artists, excited to make something truly independent. We know better than most that a show has less of a chance now than ever to be green-lit by big studios if it hasn't proven itself worth seeing yet, so we're rolling up our sleeves to find a way to make the content we're confident audiences will love based on our years making some of the best stop-motion work in the world.
In this pilot episode, Penny suddenly realizes her old favorite food has lost its appeal. Blue, her friend who Penny stays with when her dads are both at work, understands what's happened, being autistic himself, and sets out to find a healthy new comfort snack for her. We meet some of their friendliest neighbors in their apartment building, including an archaeopteryx, a stegosaurus, and a tupandactylus (dinosaurs*!) who all pitch in to help.
Once we're funded, we expect to be able to fund about four months of work to shoot "The Snack," our first episode. Our exact breakdown is available on our wishlist, but we want to pay animators, fabricators, sound specialists, musicians, post-production professionals, and others to make the best episode of indie stop motion preschool TV possible.
Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about us, Penny & Blue, and "The Snack"! We are beyond excited to go on this journey with you, and ready to update you and show off our process every step of the way. Welcome aboard!
*Tupandactylus is a pterosaur, a group of flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Screenwriter and Script Editor
Costs $300
We need to pay a professional writer and autism consultants for their work and time.
Producer
Costs $800
We need someone to organize the schedule and use their network to find people with the skills needed at every step of the pipeline.
Director - Labor and Rights
Costs $800
We need a director to guide the vision of the final piece through every step of the stop motion pipeline on schedule.
Cast - Labor and Rights
Costs $1,900
We need voice actors to give life to our characters and get compensated for their work and time!
Art Department - Labor
Costs $1,500
We need an art director and fabricators to create the world that Penny and Blue are going to inhabit!
Technical Department - Labor
Costs $3,100
We need to pay the tech wizards for making all the magic possible that we don't understand!
Catering and Craft Service
Costs $1,740
Stop-motion shoots last a long time, and a crew's gotta eat!
Transportation Expenses
Costs $500
We gotta drive places! Especially as an indie production; instead of all going to a studio we're working out of each other's homes.
Art Department - Expenses
Costs $1,100
The sets, props, and landscapes have to be made out of something! Help fuel our first-name basis relationships at the art supply store.
Technical Department - Expenses
Costs $2,500
Camera lenses! Lights! Cords, cables, and dongles galore! We have to rent (preferably) or buy all that stuff, and we need YOU to help.
Post Production - Labor
Costs $2,800
We need to pay our VFX geniuses to digitally polish the hard-earned frames sent in by the animators.
Sound Post Expenses
Costs $1,000
All those sounds in cartoons like footsteps, the wind blowing, or a phone ringing? Those have to get added in by a person!
Finishing and Delivery Expenses
Costs $700
We have to export the film in a multitude of formats! We have to get it to festivals, get it on hard drives, and get it backed up!
Space!
Costs $1,260
We'll need to pay to rent a space to actually set everything up in and shoot!
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
We are the Overcast Animation collective, a group of stop motion professionals based in Portland, OR who met doing legendary work on projects like Guillermo del Toro's 'Pinnochio', 'Wendell and Wild', 'Wildwood', and 'The Tiny Chef Show'! With the industry down hard, we decided to take green-lighting the next project into our own hands. Our people include fabricators, storyboard artists, visual effects artists, animators, producers, and DECADES of combined industry experience who are all so happy and excited to work on something we feel passionate about!
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Hello! This is my good friend Penny, and my friends call me Blue. We're making a stop-motion animated episode of a day in Penny's life as a non-speaking autistic child, with my help as an autistic adult! With your help, we can show kids on the autism spectrum that they're not alone, and that there's a supportive, loving community of folks just like them waiting to be discovered.
This is the show creator Andrés Eduardo wishes they'd had as a kid. In the 90s, autism was spoken of in hushed tones, if at all! What little was common knowledge was often incorrect, and almost exclusively applied to autistic boys with little to no attention paid to autistic girls or nonbinary people. It was very easy in those days to feel isolated, even damaged, with a diagnosis of "autism." And in 2026, the national conversation around it is often as hostile as it was back then. But together, we can see to it that the autistic children growing up right now, just as we always have, know that there is a place for them in the world to thrive and find happiness.
There's a ton of cool rewards you can earn by supporting us on our way to make "The Snack," an episode in which Penny uses her communication cards to let Blue know what she does and doesn't like about certain kinds of food. Representation is super important for kiddos who are still figuring out how the world works, and even for us grown-ups! We've got stickers, a making-of PDF and book, a spot in the credits, and of COURSE plushies of Penny and Blue themselves :)
Our team has decades of combined experience on stop-motion films and shows like Guillermo del Toro's "Pinocchio", "The Tiny Chef Show", "Wendell and Wild", "Wildwood", "In the Know" and more. Overcast is an animation collective with top-tier storyboard artists, character designers, fabricators, set dressers, animators, producers, and visual effects artists, excited to make something truly independent. We know better than most that a show has less of a chance now than ever to be green-lit by big studios if it hasn't proven itself worth seeing yet, so we're rolling up our sleeves to find a way to make the content we're confident audiences will love based on our years making some of the best stop-motion work in the world.
In this pilot episode, Penny suddenly realizes her old favorite food has lost its appeal. Blue, her friend who Penny stays with when her dads are both at work, understands what's happened, being autistic himself, and sets out to find a healthy new comfort snack for her. We meet some of their friendliest neighbors in their apartment building, including an archaeopteryx, a stegosaurus, and a tupandactylus (dinosaurs*!) who all pitch in to help.
Once we're funded, we expect to be able to fund about four months of work to shoot "The Snack," our first episode. Our exact breakdown is available on our wishlist, but we want to pay animators, fabricators, sound specialists, musicians, post-production professionals, and others to make the best episode of indie stop motion preschool TV possible.
Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about us, Penny & Blue, and "The Snack"! We are beyond excited to go on this journey with you, and ready to update you and show off our process every step of the way. Welcome aboard!
*Tupandactylus is a pterosaur, a group of flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Screenwriter and Script Editor
Costs $300
We need to pay a professional writer and autism consultants for their work and time.
Producer
Costs $800
We need someone to organize the schedule and use their network to find people with the skills needed at every step of the pipeline.
Director - Labor and Rights
Costs $800
We need a director to guide the vision of the final piece through every step of the stop motion pipeline on schedule.
Cast - Labor and Rights
Costs $1,900
We need voice actors to give life to our characters and get compensated for their work and time!
Art Department - Labor
Costs $1,500
We need an art director and fabricators to create the world that Penny and Blue are going to inhabit!
Technical Department - Labor
Costs $3,100
We need to pay the tech wizards for making all the magic possible that we don't understand!
Catering and Craft Service
Costs $1,740
Stop-motion shoots last a long time, and a crew's gotta eat!
Transportation Expenses
Costs $500
We gotta drive places! Especially as an indie production; instead of all going to a studio we're working out of each other's homes.
Art Department - Expenses
Costs $1,100
The sets, props, and landscapes have to be made out of something! Help fuel our first-name basis relationships at the art supply store.
Technical Department - Expenses
Costs $2,500
Camera lenses! Lights! Cords, cables, and dongles galore! We have to rent (preferably) or buy all that stuff, and we need YOU to help.
Post Production - Labor
Costs $2,800
We need to pay our VFX geniuses to digitally polish the hard-earned frames sent in by the animators.
Sound Post Expenses
Costs $1,000
All those sounds in cartoons like footsteps, the wind blowing, or a phone ringing? Those have to get added in by a person!
Finishing and Delivery Expenses
Costs $700
We have to export the film in a multitude of formats! We have to get it to festivals, get it on hard drives, and get it backed up!
Space!
Costs $1,260
We'll need to pay to rent a space to actually set everything up in and shoot!
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
We are the Overcast Animation collective, a group of stop motion professionals based in Portland, OR who met doing legendary work on projects like Guillermo del Toro's 'Pinnochio', 'Wendell and Wild', 'Wildwood', and 'The Tiny Chef Show'! With the industry down hard, we decided to take green-lighting the next project into our own hands. Our people include fabricators, storyboard artists, visual effects artists, animators, producers, and DECADES of combined industry experience who are all so happy and excited to work on something we feel passionate about!