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ScaredyDave
Dave Bruno is a Game Artist and Animator. He's animated for Lucky Charms and Trix Yogurt commercials, Facebook Social Games, Slot Machines, Steam Games and Studio Yotta shorts. He even has his own animated Youtube show "Scaredy Dave".

Dave Bruno @ScaredyDave

Age 36, Male

Game Animator

Columbia College Chicago Alumn

Funnyvale, CA

Joined on 4/6/11

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ScaredyDave's News

Posted by ScaredyDave - December 27th, 2023


Hey everyone! Remember me? No? That's totally fine! I was the winner of The Tournament of Flash Animators like 12 years ago and it looks like the last time I posted in any official capacity was like... 2015? Just figured for those curious if you'd like to know what I've been up to.


I'm pretty solidified in my career as a Game Animator, been doing it for about 14 years now. I started at a Christian Facebook Gaming studio that made Journey of Jesus: The Calling, where I did traditional character animations for about a year and a half before being laid off (that game also sunsetted, get ready to hear that a lot haha) Subject matter Im luke-warm to but a job is a job and it helped me move to California in 2011.


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Then I worked at IGT, a Casino company, doing art and animation for digital real-money slot machines. There I got to work on fun stuff like a Ghostbusters game and other cool IPs. Eventually after 4 years I left wanting greener pastures and more interesting work, which was a good call because apparently like 2 months after I left the entire art team was laid off, and now the whole studio doesnt exist.


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While working at IGT I took on side work with Studio Yotta, who was super fun to work with. Only helped with 2 projects: The Simple Plot of Metal Gear and the Obituary short film. That was a cool group of animators and its awesome to see them become power houses in the industry!


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But my day job I moved to Big Fish Games, the Self Aware Gaming studio to be exact. There I started on a new card game named Gambit, but that game was like.... sort of sunset? More like forgotten about. It still exists, you can still download and play it, and if you have two friends play it at the exact same time you can even peer to peer play online! Big Fish seriously doesnt remember it exists but its still there! Haha Otherwise I did some fun stuff for Big Fish Casino. I left when the studio was getting shifted around, about 2 years after I left the whole studio was laid off and all the artists were replaced by mostly Ai, so Im a bit bitter about massive talent being tossed away for automation with no soul >.>


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While working at Big Fish I accepted a side gig as an animator for Puppet Combo Games, which has been a dream come true, as a dude growing up loving PS1 survival horror games I never thought Id be working on them in 2019! I still pop in to freelance for them but its been a bit due to some big news Ill mention later!


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After 5 years I moved on, like I said the studio was rearranged too much and I saw the writing on the wall. I now work at Scopely Games on Monopoly Go! Which has been incredibly fun and that game is doing very well. Its a full remote job too so I went all in maiking my home office look kick ass.


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And you may have noticed I also moved to 3D animation. I'm really loving it. I have a special place in my heart for 2D but 99% of my jobs in 2D have all been Puppet Animations and not Traditional, so after a while I was like "well if I'm gonna animate puppets anyway, might as well have access to the 3rd dimension" and it also broadens my scope for jobs going forward because 2D is a lot harder to find in a day and age where GENSHIN IMPACT runs on a PHONE haha.


But yeah, Im 36 now, my wife and I had a baby back in May and shes wonderful (and is also why I havent accepted more Puppetcombo work, one day I will again, just kinda busy raising a human at the moment is all haha.) My hobbies these days include playing TTRPGs and Board Games with my friends.


But yeah, thats what happened to Dave Bruno! Just livin my adult ass life haha. You can still see my updated stuff on my Portfolio Website. I exist, just not really on the social animation side as much as I used to.


-See you later, Space Cowboy.

-Dave Bruno


1

Posted by ScaredyDave - February 27th, 2016


Hey Everyone!

Let me show you the funny POKeMON thing first because that probably caught the mopst people's attention. So for my wedding, I have 6 groomsmen and my oldest brother is officiating the ceremony, so I thought it would be fun to send out invitations in a silly way. Hence I created this:

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The way I sent out all the invitations was I singled out each Pokemon, put them on a slip that says "[person's name] I choose you!", and put those into Pokeballs and shipped them out. They all got a kick out of it and they all said yes (they all pretty much knew I was picking them anyway haha.) But yeah, this turned out really funny and figured you guys may enjoy it!

 

On to the thing that matters most, hey look at that! Im making a brand new animation one shot! Thats NOT a Scaredy Dave cartoon!

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Now hey, you may notice, these characters and that name seem vaguely familiar? Where have I heard them before? Youre not crazy! (well, you may be, Im not here to judge) these characters and that name reference back to my 2010 TOFA animation "One Wish Upon a Star". Back when I was in TOFA, I wrote a script for Round 2 that was a D&D inspired animation for the theme "One Wish". Unfortunately, I thought maybe it was too detailed and would take me too long to finish for the Tournament, so I went with the one you know today, One Wish Upon a Star. Well recently I was on a nostalgia trip and found the original script I wrote! I decided it was funny and simple enough that, not having a deadline anymore, I could do it now. That and I needed a break from Scaredy Dave, Ive been working on it for like 4 years now and I needed something new. So yeah! Im also doing something new with this, the Background with be in CG. Im learning CG for work, and this was a good warm up before needing to use it for my career.

 

Speaking of suspicious segways about work, here's a fun picture of Scaredy Dave as a Ghostbuster.

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Ill just let your mind wander as to what that all means. Otherwise its a fun picture!

This is old news now but Ive neglected to mention it, Ive also worked on the latest Starbomb Music Video "The Simple Plot of Metal Gear Solid" by the way. My name is in the credits and everything to prove it. Im officially a Yotta-er! Ive worked on two things with them and plan on doing more in the future because theyre a kickass group of fun talented people! Here are some screens of the shots I did.

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And there ya go! Ive been a busy boy! I just figured Id update you all. Catch ya later!

 

-Dave Bruno.


Posted by ScaredyDave - January 16th, 2016


Hey guys!

So recently we built a new book shelf in my apartment, and that meant I had enough room to dig out my old sketchbooks and put them on display. I hadnt looked through these old sketchbooks in a few years so I decided to do so. I found a bunch of fun and cool drawings in them, the best ones I posted on Twitter, which you can get to by clicking here.

But then I found a comic book I was making all throughout High School. It was fun to read them and see all the really terrible plot points and how much Ive improved art-wise over time. So I decided, in memorandum to these old forgotten characters, to redraw some. Here's some before and after fun:

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Here's Big Lipped Fatty and Hizzy Hizza, from 2002. Theyre from a poorly written comic from when I didnt know crap about crap called "Big Lipped Fatty and Hizzy Hizza Take On LA!". 

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And here they are in 2016, drawn on my Cintiq about 15 minutes before posting this status. I noticed a lot of my old characters wear biker gloves, I think that was a 90's-early 2000's thing lol.

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Here's Nemmo and Durin from Elven Princess Chronicles, a comic I started in 2002 and never finished but stopped working on in about 2005.

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Now here's the entire cast of that comic in 2016. As you can see, I drew Nemmo in the same pose as he is in that older drawing. 

 

It was just a fun little thing as I was feeling sevrely painfully nostalgic tonight and figured maybe others would find this interesting or fun haha. Later!

 

-Dave "Oh Yeah I Worked With Studio Yotta On The Latest Starbomb Music Video" Bruno


Posted by ScaredyDave - November 20th, 2015


Hey there everyone!

If youve been keeping track of Scaredy Dave, youd recognize one of two things:

 

1. There hasnt been a new episode in a long time

2. Episodes sure do come out few and far between!

 

Thats because they take forever to make because its just me making them. I wanted to make the next episode a Game, and I still may do that at some point, but that would take a very long time and I really want to tell the story at least. So here's the Compromise:

Im writing a "book"! I keep putting "book" in quotations because Im not the best writer in the universe (as in I may have a bunch of structural errors). This way you get to at least read the story of Scaredy Dave, and then one day gloat that you read it before the game came out, kinda like people whove read Game of Thrones, eh? The "book" is already in full swing and has three extra chapters not seen in the animated show! There's a new Prologue and Chapters 5 and 6 are currently up. In Chapter 6, this happens:

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You can read the "book" on the Scaredy Dave Facebook Fan Page. Seeing as how its written using facebook Notes, and those notes only have so many characters you can put into them, the book will be seperated into several notes. Right now its only two, and can find them here:

Chapters 0-5

Chapters 6-??

I have the entire "first season" of Scaredy Dave fleshed out in various documents, so now all it is is just getting it down on digital paper. Im also George Lucasing the story a bit...

Basically, when I started Scaredy Dave 3 years ago (yikes), it was JUST going to be a Let's Play that had a fun animated opening sequence. Then, when I uploaded the Opening to Newgrounds, someone mentioned that "it just needs a story now", and that started the thought train to making a show out of it. But originally the show was just supposed to be akin to Mystery Science Theater 3000, where Dave was trapped in his apartment by the Big Bad Ghost and every episode was forced to play a game that scared him while also fending off something evil in his apartment. Needless to say, the first 4 animated episodes echo that and have stayed pretty true to the original idea, they were all leading up to the formula that would make the framing device work.

However after a couple years I got more ambitious with what I wanted to do with Scaredy Dave and its universe. I thought of ways I could make the story more personal to a large moment in my life and still keep the first 4 episodes the same. I want Scaredy Dave to be funny, cool, and sometimes scary, but I also want it to mean something to me. Because if it means something to be it will be a better story for it.

The prologue helps flesh that out more, because for the most part its 99% true to my life (the only differences being my girlfriend is ommitted from the story because she was too shy to be in it, instead the character Olive is based on her but not exactly her. And my Dad drove me out to California, I didnt go alone).

Youll also notice the character designs have changed:

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Olive now looks drastically different (not that you knew who she was anyway lol) Dave's eyes are no longer attached to his glasses, his hoody looks completely different, and he has a messenger bag, sword sheath and shotgun sheath attached to his back. Chu also looks more Chinchilla like and less Bunny like. And BBG looks pretty terrifying!

So I hope you read, keep up with, and enjoy the new Scaredy Dave content. One day itll be animated or playable, but for now this will get your fix in (and make my thoughts clearer for when I DO do those things).

 

-Dave Bruno


Posted by ScaredyDave - October 30th, 2015


Hey everyone!

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So for every day of October I drew a picture of a character from a Horror Movie, Game or Book. You can view each individual one here. Enjoy!

 

ALSO, I just figured out I can upload Dave Bruno Animation: The Movie to Newgrounds, so I have! You can watch it here!

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Enjoy! And Happy Halloween everyone!

 

-Dave "Scaredy Dave" Bruno


Posted by ScaredyDave - October 21st, 2015


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Hey everyone!

Im doing a Twitch Event in the spirit of Halloween TODAY at 7PM PST! You can find the Facebook Event for it by clicking here. Ill be starting off the night with PT, and then after that Ill be moving on to Fatal Frame III: The Tormented. There will be drinking and it should overall be a pretty fun time playing some spooky games. Share the Facebook event with friends and invite whoever you want, lets get a big turn out! 

Hope to see you there!

-Dave Bruno


Posted by ScaredyDave - October 13th, 2015


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New Date!

Originally used to be this Friday, but my cousin will be visiting then so Im postponing it to the week after.

Original Post:

Hey guys!

In about 1 week Ill be doing a fun Livestream for the month of Halloween! I still have PT on my PS4, so Ill be starting the night off with a playthrough of PT (I can beat it in about a half hour now) and then Ill be moving on to a playthrough of Fatal Frame III: The Tormented, (which I believe is the scariest of the Fatal Frame games so far). Ill advertise this again a couple days before the event, but I figured I would toss it out there now as well. Hope to see you there! Ill be drinking to things as well so that should be entertaining!

-Dave Bruno


Posted by ScaredyDave - October 3rd, 2015


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Hey guys!

In about 2 weeks Ill be doing a fun Livestream for the month of Halloween! I still have PT on my PS4, so Ill be starting the night off with a playthrough of PT (I can beat it in about a half hour now) and then Ill be moving on to a playthrough of Fatal Frame III: The Tormented, (which I believe is the scariest of the Fatal Frame games so far). Ill advertise this again a couple days before the event, but I figured I would toss it out there now as well. Hope to see you there! Ill be drinking to things as well so that should be entertaining!

-Dave Bruno


Posted by ScaredyDave - August 8th, 2015


Ladies and Gentlemen... I give you... BALLS!

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Hey everyone!

I had been thinking of doing this for a while, and finally I was bored enough to do so! This video is a compilation of EVERY SINGLE ANIMATION I have EVER made ever since I first learned how to animate in College, all the way up to this date of August 8th, 2015! Thats 8 YEARS worth of animation! It is one hour and 16 minutes long! Gaze in wonderment as I grow from fledgling noob to seasoned professional! Be amazed by the steady change in art style and quality! And I still have so much more to learn. I am actually currently in the middle of two projects, one has a small appearance at the very end, the other is still too early, so maybe next movie!

Click here or on the image to watch it!

And now, back to work!

-Dave Bruno

 


Posted by ScaredyDave - July 24th, 2015


Hey guys! Just tossing this to the wind:

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Its my birthday on Sunday, so Saturday night I felt like playing (maybe also drinking to?) Galerians on the PS1! Its a game I havent played in a while, and its a very interesting game that not many people know about, so I figured Id have some fun and play it again! Its a survival horror game involving kids with psychic powers, and it has some genuinely creepy moments and environments in it!

Wanna have some fun Saturday Night and watch a game you may not have seen being played by a funny handsome man? Check out my stream tomorrow at 8PM PST! Bring fun! Bring beer! Bring friends!