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Once upon a time, Disney aired a documentary about Feature Animation. I was shocked to discover that Goofy was not a real actor in some 2-dimensional world too expensive for our family to go to on summer vacation. Still, I watched in awe as the animators flipped pages at their desk and made their drawing move. Shear magic. It was at that moment that I knew I wanted to be an animator. I was 12 years old.

The quest had begun! But being a young girl growing up on a farm in rural Alberta, I was a long way off from my goals. There wasn’t anyone I could ask about it or “job shadow” for a day, no books in the library, and certainly no studios even remotely close by. I owned one copy of Disney’s Robin Hood, so I began there, freeze-framing through it all, and filling my sketchbook.

After I finished high school I began searching more aggressively for a career in the industry. Every lead told me that a 2-year foundation in the arts was the first step. I enrolled at Red Deer College in the Fine Arts Diploma Program and continued to fine-tune my cartooning skills. (Life drawing was a big help!) I earned my diploma, but enjoyed college so much that I stayed for a 3rd year! It was a blast, …but it wasn’t animation.

Soon after 3rd year, I discovered a new animation school in Calgary and enrolled right away. Unfortunately, it didn’t provide me with much more than I didn’t already know. It did, however, land me with an internship at a small, local graphics company. This is where I met Kandrix, and the rest, as they say, is history! …

Work was slow, to say the least, and with the company shifting focus to 3D output, it became obvious that it was time for me to move on. Luckily, Kandrix came with, and after a couple of years of regrouping and strategizing, KONsequential Studios was born!

In those 2 years, I became involved with Quickdraw, an animation society in Calgary, which was just the learning experience and exposure that I needed. I attended classes and workshops (including one from visiting artist Bill Plympton!) and eventually began teaching the 2D Intro Animation class.

Along side producing Issue #2 of A MONK’S TALE, I am also developing a mini-comic as well as working on an animated short film called TICK TALK, which I hope to have finished by the end of the year.

How we met.....
The two of us met at a creative studio where we both worked. Laurie was in the creative department, while Kandrix was in the business department. Eventually, we parted from the company at different times. And...that's history...we've been together since 1999.....and there's a lot more stuff in the works. A Monk's Tale is our first project together, and we're hoping we can work really well as a team. So far it's been pretty good!
Laurie Breitkreuz	Kandrix Foong
Once upon a time, Disney aired a documentary about Feature Animation. I was shocked to discover that Goofy was not a real actor in some 2-dimensional world too expensive for our family to go to on summer vacation. Still, I watched in awe as the animators flipped pages at their desk and made their drawing move. Shear magic. It was at that moment that I knew I wanted to be an animator. I was 12 years old. The quest had begun! But being a young girl growing up on a farm in rural Alberta, I was a long way off from my goals. There wasn’t anyone I could ask about it or “job shadow” for a day, no books in the library, and certainly no studios even remotely close by. I owned one copy of Disney’s Robin Hood, so I began there, freeze-framing through it all, and filling my sketchbook. After I finished high school I began searching more aggressively for a career in the industry. Every lead told me that a 2-year foundation in the arts was the first step. I enrolled at Red Deer College in the Fine Arts Diploma Program and continued to fine-tune my cartooning skills. (Life drawing was a big help!) I earned my diploma, but enjoyed college so much that I stayed for a 3rd year! It was a blast, …but it wasn’t animation. Soon after 3rd year, I discovered a new animation school in Calgary and enrolled right away. Unfortunately, it didn’t provide me with much more than I didn’t already know. It did, however, land me with an internship at a small, local graphics company. This is where I met Kandrix, and the rest, as they say, is history! … Work was slow, to say the least, and with the company shifting focus to 3D output, it became obvious that it was time for me to move on. Luckily, Kandrix came with, and after a couple of years of regrouping and strategizing, KONsequential Studios was born! In those 2 years, I became involved with Quickdraw, an animation society in Calgary, which was just the learning experience and exposure that I needed. I attended classes and workshops (including one from visiting artist Bill Plympton!) and eventually began teaching the 2D Intro Animation class. Along side producing Issue #2 of A MONK’S TALE, I am also developing a mini-comic as well as working on an animated short film called TICK TALK, which I hope to have finished by the end of the year. Laurie	Many, many, moons ago...in a far away land, I self-published a couple of comic books. In order that they were released, they were; Timelines Prelude (an ashcan), Timelines #1(a full color book), and Virtue of Deceit (another ashcan). Of course, at this time, I had no inkling of how the comic industry worked.....so there are many copies remaining of Timelines #1 in my basement. If anyone would like to purchase bulk copies...I would be more than happy to accommodate them. So, it's creeping up on the 10 year anniversary since its release, so there has been an itch to do a comic book, one that is carried to completion instead of just first issues and ashcans. After tons of thought and discussions with my better half, we came up with a concept that we could both agree on; action adventure in ancient China...and, here we are. I'm still working on my drawing skills, it's been a long time since I've drawn any substantial amount, and then poof! I have an idea, let's make a comic book to get me back into drawing....what in the blue hell was I thinking? What was planned as a small side project certainly evolved into something much bigger and better. I am definitely proud to say that I worked on A Monk's Tale. I've always been a fan of Chinese martial arts, and I've been watching movies since I was knee high. Some of my biggest influences are Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, and Donnie Yen...so hopefully in the next two issues you can see some of each of those talented martial artists in the monk characters. The trick of course is being able to illustrate all of the complex movements and actions....and I don't think anybody wants a 32 page comic with 30 pages of fighting.....it's supposed to be fast paced. Down the road, I would like to produce a couple of books that are drawn in different styles...but first I need to work on my basics. I hope it shows with the following issues... Anyways, more stuff about me, I'm a huge Transformers fan, and I'm so happy that there's a huge revitalization going on, it's such a great concept. I'll be putting up some of my Transformers sketches into my gallery section, hopefully sometime soon. I also love RPG video games, however I haven't gotten much time to waste on them, due to work, A Monk's Tale, countless other side projects...and so forth...I've amassed a large collection of games for the PS1, but I don't have a playstation to run all the stuff on, I keep telling myself that once I finish the next project, I'll get me one. But by the time i do PS3 will be out... Kandrix