Interview

Nottingham-based illustrator and comic book artist Luke Pearson is best known as the creator of the ‘Hilda’ graphic novel series—and for the Netflix animated series based on them. Unbeknown to most people, he has worked as a storyboard artist on ‘Adventure Time,’ creates stop-trick animations with his partner Philippa Rice, and used to draw comics that had nothing to do with ‘Hilda.’ Shortly before publicly announcing the discontinuation of the series we met him at his Pictoplasma exhibition to talk about the genesis of his graphic novel, the intimidating move from the books to an international TV series, and the different levels of scariness in both media.

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Justin K. Thompson is an award-winning production designer with years of experience working for such illustrious outfits as The Jim Henson Company, Lucasfilm Animation, and Cartoon Network. Most recently he served as production designer for Sony Pictures Animation’s celebrated Academy Award winner ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.’
During the Pictoplasma Conference 2019, we talked with Justin about being self-taught in a highly competitive industry, taking a leap of faith with new technology, needing over 200 tries to visualize invisibility, and why he prefers to remain unseen.

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Philippa Rice, known as the #1 New York Times bestselling author of ‘Soppy,’ is an artist working in a number of different media including comics, illustration, animation, model making and crochet. Philippa lives in Nottingham, UK, with her partner Luke Pearson and their daughter, and has recently released ‘BABY: A Soppy Story’ a collection of all new comics and illustrations about the small, intimate moments of a couple expecting their first baby.
We met spontaneously at her exhibition during the Pictoplasma Conference 2019 where she introduced us to her growing family of characters, gave insights into her working process, talked about the difficulties of finding the right work/life balance, and the importance of being honest…

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Iza Rutkowska, a Polish visual artist, designer, educator and culture manager, uses artistic tools to integrate communities and instigate social change. She designs interactive objects in order to catalyze people’s energy. She creates playgrounds with children, backyards with residents, she transforms monuments into animals, and travels the world with a giant teddy bear.
Living the dream? Her work has also its dark sides. We talked with her about how happy endings often require digging in your heels, about the pain of allowing your creation to have a life of its own, and why surprising people (while disguised as a tree) is the future of city planning.

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Although trained as a product designer, Cairo based dina Amin loves to explore intersections between disciplines. In 2016, she started a side project ‘Tinker Friday’ on Instagram, where she combined her passion for product design and stop motion with consumerist critique, showing people what’s inside the countless things they throw away. We met up with her after her tinker workshop at Pictoplasma 2019, where attendees were invited to create characters out of broken smartphone parts, defunct earphones, and a mountain of obsolete electronic waste. She told us why she loves to take things apart, what our products reveal about us and the society we live in, and the complications of buying a Dremmel in Cairo.

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Cabeza Patata, the illustration and animation studio formed by English craftswoman and illustrator, Katie Menzies, and Spanish 3D artist and animator, Abel Reverter, are building a world of strong but playful characters that pop up everywhere with their bold colors and badass attitudes.
We talked with them about their first steps as a collective, how 3D character design is still subject to weird gender issues, and why it makes more sense to acknowledge being part of a larger trend than pursuing the myth of the genius in the bubble.

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After taking her first steps on the animated feature ‘Max&Co,’ Félicie Haymoz was hired as the lead character designer for Wes Anderson’s ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox,’ tasked with turning Hollywood A-Listers into lovable furry animals. Next she moved on to design the entire cast of charming human characters for Wes Anderson’s second animation film, ‘Isle of Dogs.’ During the 15th Pictoplasma Berlin Conference we chatted with her about the joy of pairing humans with their spirit animal, the pros and cons of Wes Anderson’s communication style, and why working for others can be a real relief.

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Mark Moget and Taco Sipma form the artist duo Sauerkids, based in Rotterdam. With day jobs as graphic designers at Dutch design agency Enchilada, the Sauerkids label is the perfect outlet for their personal, non-client based work.
Although the Sauerkids artists have been accused of “being on medication”, their work is probably better described as a mash-up of innocent childhood imagery and the mental confusion of everyday life. We talked to them about their recent move into more abstract forms of action painting.

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Eduardo Navas is the author of the book “Remix Theory: The Aesthetics of Sampling” (New York, Springer Wien, 2012), an analysis of remix in art, music and new media and currently researches and teaches Remix Studies and Principles of Cultural Analytics at Pennsylvania State University’s School of Visual Arts. We asked Eduardo Navas questions on how remix functions in art practice – character design specifically – and if there is a difference between visual remix and sampling – or if everyone is simply stealing from another in the golden days of digital copy / paste production.

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Geneviève is a French illustrator renowned for an ever-evolving procession of loveable characters and technicolor digital mashes. Her works are bright, fun and hectic, often combining symmetrical designs with soft-edged computer-generated images against photographic backgrounds. Her initial black, egg-shaped character with white dots for eyes has gradually mutated into other forms and colours.

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The work of Buff Monster is characterised by happy, typographic characters living in bubbly landscapes. Starting to make a name for himself by posting thousands of hand-silkscreened posters across Los Angeles, he is renowned for his meticulously executed paintings and diverse commercial products. With his Melty Misfits characters, based on ice cream cones, he creates narratives that reference art history.
Pictoplasma talked to them in 2013 about icons in street art, merchandise, and the melting Renaissance.

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“Welcome to FriendsWithYou. The friends have magic powers never seen before, and are improving lives one person at a time…” The artist duo was created with one basic concept in mind – to become friends with you. Sam Borkson and Arturo Sandoval combined forces in 2002 and have been rapidly spreading their art around the globe ever since, expanding their playful and spiritual vision to modular toys, animation, public parades and large scale art installation. Pictoplasma talked to them in 2006, as their were in the process of building up an unachieved cult status.

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Brought up high amongst the pristine glaciers of Snowdonia, North Wales, young Osian found himself snowed in for six months of each year, spending the dark and stormy winters in front of the fire drawing and listening to the gruesome Celtic legends of his forebears. We talked to him about fake advertising campaigns, fragile character patterns and his ongoing quest in search for new shapes and sizes…

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Dutch artist Fons Schiedon works as animation director and illustrator in New York. He has made a name for himself with his commercial, style-defining animation shorts and the chewing-gum-like distortion of his characters’ body parts in time and space. All his work has a strong conceptual approach. This interview was led for the compilation The Character Encyclopaedia in 2006, after Fons had his international breakthrough with a highly-respected campaign for MTV Asia and Motorola.

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