Max Toy

Ask anyone who knows Mark to describe him and the two things that will come up are toys and art.

After attending the Academy of Art College in San Francisco during the late 80's and picking up a New York artist's rep, Mark embarked on a 10-year plus journey as a freelance commercial illustrator. Over the years he's worked with a diverse client list which has included Scholastic Books, Bantam Books, Harper Collins, Becketts Publications, Schlage Locks, AMD, Genentech, IBM, Square Soft, Activision, DC Comics, Sony, Galoob Toys, Lucasfilms, Hasbro Toys and numerous Advertising and
Design firms nationally and internationally. The highlight of this time included over 40 cover paintings for RL Stine's Goosbumps book series, Give Yourself Goosbumps.

Churning out hundreds of assignments over the years, coupled with deadlines from hell took a toll, both mentally and physically. "I had to reassess what was important in my life and refocus my abilities towards a new goal. " said Nagata.

"I'd been collecting Japanese toys all along, and suddenly realized it would be cool to have a magazine of some type devoted to them. So it's no surprise that Mark ended up creating and co-publishing Super7 Magazine. After successfully building the Super7 brand for nearly 4 years , it was time to move on."I wasn't able to paint as much as I wanted, and I realized that the part of Super7 I enjoyed the most was creating toys and artwork " reflects Nagata.

Thus was born Mark's new venture called Max Toy Company, named after his son Max. With a nod to the Golden Age of Japanese toys, Max Toy Co. will continue the tradition of offering classic Japanese character toys by all the best toy companies. Max Toy Co. also produces its own exclusive toys, both licensed and original. Many of the original toys offered are hand painted by Mark Nagata. A tradition that goes back to Japanese toy makers. Also most of the offerings feature unique artwork on the headercards painted by Mark.

In September 2007 the first group Kaiju show in the United States featuring artists and companies from Japan, USA and South America was held at Rotofugi Gallery in Chicago. Called Toy Karma ( www.toykarma.com ) it was a historic gathering that featured many custom painted toys and art.

Following on the heels of this event in October 2007, over 30 of Mark's original paintings, toys and a selection of his vintage toy collection were featured in Beyond Ultraman: Seven Artists Explore the Vinyl Frontier, at the Pasadena Museum of California Art , a joint exhibition with LaTda , Los Angeles Toy, Doll & Amusements Museum. This marked the first time in a musuem setting that the influence of Japanese toys on California artists was explored.

And in 2009, Mark curated Mark Nagata and Kaiju Comrades art show in Tokyo, Japan, once again bring together artists from different aspects of the kaiju toy movement in this first of it's kind art toy show. From 2008 to the present Mark has also been selling his hand painted custom Kaiju toys via the prestigous auction houses Philips De Pury and Christies in New York and London. Mark's customs have sold in every auction and continue to spread the Kaiju art toy movement into new uncharted areas of the art world.

In addition, Mark has also written and Max Toys have appeared in the Eiji Tsuburaya biography from Chronicle Books,the soon to be released, Kaiju Attack from Collins Books and Full Vinyl book from Harper Collins, Otaku USA magazine, and Japanese magazines, Hyper Hobby and KaiZine, Spectrum Fantastic Arts annual book, to name a few.

More recently Max Toy Co. has teamed up with well known Art Toy distributor, StrangeCo .,to help wholesale and distribute its product to a much wider audience.

"Max Toy Co. allows me to produce original artwork, sculpt new toys, and work directly with a lot of my talented artist friends." Nagata says.
Max Toy Co is a synthesis of toys and art ... both life long passions.

My interview with Mark Nagata

Hi Nick !

Sorry for the late reply to your reply ;-P below are my responses !

#####



On Apr 13, 2010, at 7:29 AM, Nicky Birch wrote:

Thank you again for agreeing to help with my project,


##### your welcome !


I am uncertain how to start so I was going to rattle off some questions just to get going.


##### thats fine ...



1) Do you think the current trend for designer toys is linked with the growth of hip-hop and the aesthetics of the graffiti culture?


##### I think a certain segment is surely tied to those movements .. for sure the collectors and artists in their 20's and below , it's a major influence.




2) I have heard many different names for the current art movement, e.g. Low Brow, pop surrealism, underground art, naïve art, outsider art and new Brow art. Which do you feel is the most correct?


##### Well personally I don't think it's up to me to say what is correct or not ;-P If you look at any Art movement from history it's usually post the movement when the name of it emerges ... I suppose you could say the Pop Art movement was coined by them, but I would guess with so many terms floating around, it will be up to the historians to settle on a term or two ... I like Art Toy as a general catch all term.




3) Would you say that the designer toy industry acts as a separate element of the ‘low brow’ art movement, like painting, sculpture or performance?


#####
Yes and no ... it is an extension of Low Brow art, for sure, but what i do is based and influenced from japanese pop culture going back to 1954 and the first godzilla film .. there was no low brow back than ( ha-ha ).




4) With manga being a more respected form of story telling in Japan, do you feel the people there are more open to designer toys and don’t consider them ‘low brow’?


##### well in Japan, Manga is a form of communication .. they look to Manga for entertainment but also to learn and educate. So unlike comic books in the USA, they are not viewed as a kids thing. In that way japan is far ahead of western cultures in excepting Manga as a art form.




5) Which artist would you most like to work with on a toy project?


##### I think I'm pretty lucky, so far I've worked with almost everyone I wanted to work with.





6) Would you say that you have good relationships with Strange Co and Kid Robot?


##### Sure, StrangeCo is my distributor in the USA, I've not had direct connection with Kid Robot, but they do carry my toys.






7) Do you use 3D rendering software such a Maya to create your designs?


##### I wish I did use a computer program like Maya ;-) No, I just use a pencil and paper. For colors I use a photo copier of the sketches and affix them to a board with matte medium, than use acrylics and airbrush to color them.
The only time a computer is involved is to scan and send them off to a sculptor or factory.





8) Would you ever bring your Kaiju Comrades show to the UK?


##### Thats would be fun .. although I'm fully booked almost till the end of 2011 right now .. and would also depend on sponsorships and if a store is willing to put the time and effort into hosting a show like that. It's a big undertaking .. as these shows can have over 50 artists involved from all over the world !






9) What stuff do you like that’s out there right now, whether it be a toy, art print or sculpture?


##### There's a Japanese couple called Gumliens .. I love their work .. and also Imiri Sakabashira .. some amazing toys by this guy ... sorry there's so many great artists right now ;-) hard to pick !





10) What tips could you give an artist who wants to get his designs produced as toys?


##### It's really a tough market out there right now. You can of course approach the major companies with your ideas ( but get them to sign or agree to a non disclosure agreement first ! so they don't steal your designs from you ! )
if you can not get your own figures made, funded by yourself, than look into getting resin versions made .. you can even do this yourself .. with a bit of practice. It's probably the easiest way to realize your figures in 3D form without breaking your bank account.






While I have your attention, I hope you don’t mind if I try to capitalise on the opportunity, I would very much like to submit the final designs of the toy range I am working on, to you to get your opinion and any criticisms to help develop my working practice, again I realise you are very busy so any help is greatly appreciated.


##### Sure thats no problem .. I can give you my opinion on them ;-)



I wish you and your family all the best in the future.



Thank you very much for your time



##### Thanks Nicky I hope these answers are useful, and feel free to keep intouch !

Mark

Kid Robot

Founded in 2002 by designer Paul Budnitz, Kidrobot is the world's premier creator of limited edition art toys and apparel. Kidrobot creates toys, apparel, accessories, and other products in collaboration with many of the world's most talented artists and designers.

The products sold at Kidrobot are the centerpieces of a global movement that exemplifies the cutting edge of both pop art and mass culture. Many Kidrobot toys, such as Dunny, MUNNY, and Frank Kozik's Labbits and Mongers, attract huge followings. Artists that work with Kidrobot have gained celebrity status-these include USA artists Frank Kozik, Tim Biskup, Huck Gee, Joe Ledbetter, Tristan Eaton, Paul Budnitz, and Tara McPherson; the German design collective eBoy; Japan's Devilrobots & Mad Barbarians; French street artists Tilt & Mist; the UK's TADO and ilovedust; Australia's Nathan Jurevicius; Argentina's DOMA; and many, many others.

Kidrobot also regularly collaborates with many of the world's top brands to create unique limited editions products. Past collaborations include Marc Jacobs, Visionaire Magazine, Barneys New York, The Standard Hotels, Playboy, Burton, Nike, Lacoste, Nooka, Matt Groening & more.

A blend of sculpture and popular art, many of Kidrobot's exclusive toys are extremely rare and collectible. Artists often create a series of only a few hundred to a few thousand pieces, so once a toy is sold out, it's sold out forever. Kidrobot toys retail anywhere from $5 to $25,000, and many appreciate in value over time.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York City (MoMA) acquired 13 Kidrobot toys in late 2007, adding these iconic pieces to the museum's collection.

In 2006, Kidrobot launched its exclusive apparel line. Vibrant, distinctive, and produced in limited runs, Kidrobot apparel draws from the company's unique pop art aesthetic.

Kidrobot stores are located in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, and London, with temporary pop-up stores appearing from time to time in other cities worldwide. Our products can be found online at kidrobot.com and in select retailers worldwide.

James Jarvis

Profile: James Jarvis
James Jarvis started his toy empire nearly a decade ago with his Martin character, spawning a universe which collectors fell in love with. On the verge of releasing his latest comic-book project – Vortigern’s Machine – he tells us his toy story…
The toy collecting world has been captivated by James Jarvis ever since the 1998 release of Martin – the first potato-headed ambassador to spring fully formed from his cartoon universe. Since then the cast of characters has expanded steadily, adding the likes of Lars, The Bearded Prophet and now the mysterious Mr Vortigern, all the while gaining a huge following.



Despite the obvious charm of his PVC pals, Jarvis is reluctant to wear the badge of character designer. Instead, citing a firm commitment to the principles of modernism, he roots the appeal of his creations in the consistency of the world they come from. “I’m a cartoonist,” he says, “I like drawing little worlds, and the toys are just one manifestation of that.”
After studying illustration, first at Brighton University and then at the Royal College of Arts, Jarvis started to look for illustration work. “The first thing I got was drawing adverts for Slam City Skates,” he recalls. The London skateboard shop was just starting a clothing label called Holmes and, beginning a long-running relationship with fashion, James ended up creating graphics for them.
Commissioned work
The next work that came along kept up the fashion theme: “Through Holmes I started being commissioned by The Face,” he says. While this may sound like a great break, Jarvis had some reservations. “I found it weird doing commissioned illustration,” he says. It wasn’t so much artistic differences as a clash of world views: “I often had to draw my characters in situations I felt they wouldn’t naturally be in.” It does sound a bit compromising.
“I always felt the characters I drew in illustrations had an identity outside the commissioned work,” says Jarvis. “So,” quite naturally, “I started to think about what their cartoon reality should consist of.” Eventually, these musings developed into the World of Pain comic book, but something momentous happened first.
The birth of plastic
In 1997, Jarvis began his collaboration with the fashion label Silas. At the same time, a Japanese friend suggested that he should turn his characters into toys, allowing them to step out of their coalescing cartoon universe into the real world. Silas and Jarvis pooled their resources and Martin was born – part potato, part Silas, all Jarvis.
“I was very excited,” says Jarvis. “It was a new thing.” Every inch the proud parent, Jarvis had no idea he was on the brink of something so big – how could he? “At the time, in 1997, nobody had really done that kind of thing on such a small scale,” he says. It didn’t stop him from dreaming though: “We got into toys with a vision: we wanted to become like Playmobil, to make toys which were cool but for a mass market.”
Once Martin had established a bridgehead in the public psyche, Evil Martin and Bubba were unleashed. Next came the World of Pain comic book and the policeman toy. Asked how much of himself he puts into these characters, Jarvis replies: “I identify with my policeman’s contempt for littering.” Jarvis being a keen cyclist, he probably sees a lot of that.
“One of the things I like about making toys,” says Jarvis, “is the industrial process of it.” Although he’s keen to point out that what he really does is draw, the toys add another dimension in more than one sense: “I like the distance it gives you from the human inconsistencies of drawing.”
Despite being made of vinyl, Martin and his growing crowd of buddies have real character and that’s what sets them apart. “We came from the world of fashion,” explains Jarvis, “and a lot of people have clung to the exclusive side of that.” Far from wanting the club to be sniffily exclusive, he points out, “Our stuff isn’t that limited; it’s quite accessible.” But after all is said and done, this is the world of designer toys, a term Jarvis freely admits he “hates”.
Jarvis is a man of the people. “I’m not interested in it being James Jarvis’s Martin or whatever,” he says. The ideal situation is one where the characters speak for themselves. “Like Tintin or Asterix,” the childhood role models from which Martin and Co inherit their independence, “they have their own identity outside of their creators.”
Drawing inspiration
So comic books formed an important part of Jarvis’s story, but in the European comic-book tradition: “I always found American comics a bit one-dimensional I suppose,” he says. The likes of Asterix and Tintin had genuine stories, not the same story repeated ad nauseam. James takes his lead from this and draws inspiration from the world around him: “What I do comes from general culture.”
Sucking up ambient details from pop culture, he says, “I just draw what I’m interested in at any particular moment. Sometimes I want to draw skateboarders, or policemen, or cavaliers.” What makes the difference is the fact that these are wellconsidered, rounded characters, rounded to the point of minimalism. This is no accident: “I like to think my characters were designed with the ideals of modernism,” states Jarvis.

The amount of personality Jarvis can squeeze out of such a limited palette is incredible. “I didn’t want to draw people, but I wanted them to be able to reflect humanity,” he says, and that they do. “I think they’re more appealing than humans.” And they are that too. The ‘potato-headed multiverse’ is a reality and Jarvis, along with his collaborators, is busy expanding it.
Amos Toys
Jarvis has had collaborators along his way, notably Russell Waterman and Sofia Prantera from clothing label Silas. “They’ve been very inspirational,” he confirms. “They showed how much you can achieve independently.” So, having created the first four of his potato-headed pals for Silas, the trio set up Amos Toys.
This gave Jarvis a taste of freedom: “Starting Amos meant that I was no longer reliant on other people to generate work. I could commission myself.” And commission he did, once he’d taken care of ‘Juvenile Delinquents’ for Sony’s Time Capsule toy project. Things stepped up a gear in 2003 with the release of the first series of In-Crowd toys. Then came the Where is Silas? book.
In fact, it was starting to become a bit of a headache maintaining the purity of the various worlds his characters inhabited: “Are there cowboys in Lars’ world?” asks Jarvis. “There must be because he wears cowboy boots. That means they have horses and stirrups. Do the horses have noses?” Only time will tell because right now, Jarvis and Russell Waterman (“He’s like an editor”) are finishing up work on the latest annex on the multi-verse Vortigern’s Machine.
Character building
“I never set out to be a ‘character designer’,” Jarvis insists. “I’ve never ascribed any special value to something being a ‘limited edition’ or hard to find.” In all probability, an attempt to be exclusive or cliquey wouldn’t have been so wholeheartedly endorsed by the buying public. And Jarvis regularly expresses a love of accessible art, “like The Simpsons or Asterix. I think they’re all the more vital for being popular, without being populist.”
So what’s the secret? Jarvis has no hesitation in answering that: “I love drawing, and everything springs from that font.” The characters are a by-product of a kind: “I see myself as someone who draws. All the projects I work on come from drawing, be they illustration, comic strips or toys.” The most simple piece of advice to anyone with a toy-shaped twinkle in their eye? “My tip would be: learn to draw everything.”
What makes these toys so immediately engaging is the fact that they have a context. Even when they didn’t have a proper world, they at least had some coded version of one, dredged up from Jarvis’s subconscious. “I think the things which have longevity will be the things that have a bit of depth to them, that are part of a bigger picture.”
And like any parent, this will have bitter-sweet consequences when the young ones finally fly the nest as Martin now has: “I don’t feel like I designed him any more,” says his concerned-sounding creator. He’s grown up, moved on. “He’s such a graphic figure, he comes from his own world now.” Ah, they grow up so fast.

Pete Fowler

You've probably unknowingly spied Pete Fowler's artwork before you were even aware of his music. The skillful freelance illustrator and self-proclaimed "monster creator" has showcased his postmodern, cartoon-inspired works through everything from traditional art exhibitions to Kia commercials, and of course his familiar illustrative album artwork for Welsh rockers Super Furry Animals.
 Speaking of those monsters; in Fowler's world, they reside on a place that Fowler's dubbed "Monsterism Island" - each of his characters have backstories and individual traits, a set of comic books have been created by Fowler to tell their tales, and plasticized versions of the monsters themselves can be purchased via Fowler's own manufacturing company. A soundtrack album for Monsterism Island was even released several years ago.
 And now he's adding to his roster of activity with a second brand new Monsterism Island CD called A Psychedelic Guide to Monsterism Island.
 Yes, it's pretty obvious that Pete Fowler has a lot going on - but how did it all start? "My monsterism artwork originated with characters that I had been developing over the years in my sketchbook; they found an outlet in my first series of toys back in 2001," Fowler explains. "The idea of creating a world for them to reside in seemed like the logical step, so Monsterism Island appeared on the map. I see the Island as a place where reality is warped through an often psychedelic, surreal filter, reflecting our own world and experiences through the lens." Super Furry Animals obviously agreed with Fowler's artistic sensibilities.
 "I started working with Super Furry Animals on their Radiator LP, and continued to create their covers from then on, plus merchandise, stage sets, videos and giant inflatable bears; working with SFA has been constantly interesting and challenging for me, and their music continues to blow me away," Fowler says.

 As far as Fowler's own soundtrack for his Monsterism Island world, it was a collaborative effort from the start ("The concept was thought up by JT (musician Jon Tye) and myself after Jon ran an idea past me over the phone for a compilation CD while I was traveling down a dusty track on the way to DJ at Bestival.")
 The initial idea was to create a selection of original music to be used as a universal film/TV library disc; a soundtrack of sorts for Fowler's island that would be recorded by using the invented locale's moods and sights as inspiration for a variety of bands. 
 Fowler sat down with Tye and the pals drew up a 'wish list' of musicians that they hoped they'd be able to snag for the disc - which resulted in, among others, SFA's Gruff Rhys, Richard Norris, Gary Cobain (The Future Sound of London), and Wolf People - and the recordings began. "We were lucky to get almost all of the artists that we approached on to the ferry to Monsterism Island," Fowler grins. Fowler, of course, contributed the artwork to the soundtrack's cover, and found that his art and the sounds complement each other perfectly. "I'm extremely happy with the music on the CD in terms of it reflecting my artwork," Fowler says, "I think it has a sense of the magical, surreal nature of my art, and it's fascinating to hear aural responses to it. My work has, for a while now, had a heavy musical theme to it that reflects my interests, so it's probably focused me in that particular area of sound and sonics." 
 And back to that whole 'Fowler has a lot going on' bit - he also contributed two music tracks of his own to the CD; the Monsters at Work track "Fisherman's Jam," and a tune under the name Squonjax called "Chocolate Skull," on which Fowler played a Kantele (a Finnish plucked string instrument) and various electronics, and added in field recordings of owls. "I'm working on some more music with JT for release on an esoteric micro-label we're going to start this year as an outlet for some of the music we want to do," Fowler says, "I also team up with Cherrystones, and have a track with him on the library release CD. We jam quite regularly on the more experimental side of sound and have just returned from the All Tomorrow's Parties festival; we jammed in the gallery where I had an exhibition. My ears are still ringing!"

Story by Kristi Kates

Profile: Pete Fowler
“Jumping back to the world of humans gives me distance to think about the other things I do.” Pete Fowler talks about life on and off Monsterism Island…
As far as job titles go, ‘monster creator’ has to be one of the best. Designer Pete Fowler has given himself just that tag. He is the master of Monsterism Island, which he describes as: “A psychedelic parallel universe which is on planet earth but undiscovered because of a complex weather system.”



It is the inhabitants of this island that draw interest: tribes of cute-yet-dark characters and animals who interact with each other and seem to live lives of their own. Now that the kids who hankered after a Millennium Falcon or an AT-AT are grown up and earning, they can buy cool toys – and for many that will mean one of the inhabitants of Monsterism Island.
We might not know exactly where it is, but real-world people are allowed a glimpse into Monsterism at www.monsterism.net. You can even own your own slice of island life by purchasing one of the vinyl toy characters. So how did Pete Fowler end up on the island?
Corporate beginnings
Fowler moved to London from his native Wales in 1995 and spent years plugging away at corporate work and designing nightclub flyers while he developed the monsters in his own time. “For a while I really enjoyed it and there were lots of varied briefs and I did monthly illustrations for GQ,” explains Fowler. “I always did the monsters on the side and when that was a bit more developed – and as I got tired of some of the briefs – I let my imagination grow in my spare time. When I felt more confident, I started to bring the monsters into my work and, not long after that, I met the Super Furry Animals.”
Fowler was approached by the Welsh band’s record label to do the artwork for the 1997 album Radiator and since then he’s designed not only LP covers but merchandise, stage sets, animations, promo videos and giant inflatable bears. “I was working on mostly commercial projects when the Super Furry Animals asked me to create artwork for their covers. Both the band and myself are Welsh, but I didn’t know them previously. They really responded to the monsters I was making and that gave me the opportunity to develop them further.
“That was definitely a turning point for me, seeing my work on posters, adverts, magazines and kind of creating an identity for the band. It was a perfect project for me as I was a fan of their music, and their attitudes seemed to gel with mine in terms of visual aesthetic and musical ideas. That gave me a taste of what could be done with the monsters and was one of my first paid monster projects.”
The monsters were something Fowler had been developing for years – they grew from a boyhood interest in monsters, ghosts and UFOs into drawings on his sketch pad, where they were developed over the years. Now the monsters are more than just pixels on the screen – they have characters, stories, a past and even relationships.
Vinyl monsters
Fowler produces the Monsterism toys, which are sold at www.playbeast.com, with his business partner Rob Manley. Manley comes from a record label background and is the A&R man who signed the Chemical Brothers. Now he spots talent of a different kind and works with Fowler marketing the website and toys and organising the manufacturing side of the business. Manley says: “I left the music business nine years ago to do something different and have ended up working with artists and developing products. When I first came across Pete I realised he is as much into music as I am. Music plays a big part in Monsterism as there is a lot of music on the island, but now collectors buy the monsters based on the art. They appeal to the modern-day pop art collectors.”
Fowler is not sure if he is part of a specific movement, but, if he is, he says, “It’s the modern equivalent of the ornament on the fireplace. I guess it’s the generation that grew up on comics and Star Wars who have the disposable income now they’re adults and spend it on toys. I think the toys attract people that are interested in design and illustration, as well as fan-boy collectors. It’s no longer a male-only scene and has opened up to all types of people. I’m aware of what goes on in the scene and know a few of the creators and company owners. It’s a small world, so I try to keep up with what’s going on.
“My problem with the scene is that it can be a bit derivative. I don’t think enough people are pushing the genre and some seem happy to create a toy that looks similar to something that’s been made before. There are very varied talents, though, despite what I’ve just said. I think if there is a movement, it’s about illustrators taking their work to the next level by telling stories and creating new worlds.”
The monsters often come adorned with horns or antlers. They may live a virtual life on the internet, but their origins are very much in the real world. Fowler takes inspiration for his creations from nature’s strangeness, and most of his creatures start their life on the sketch pad. “Ideas can come from anywhere really,” he says. “I’m always inspired by the incredible natural world we live in. I think a lot of the animals on earth are very monstrous and one can understand where some of the myths and legendary beasts came from.
“The stories are often the difficult bit,” Fowler continues. “Sometimes an idea for a character can come from a story or it develops in my head as I’m creating. But, usually, I’ll look at the character in the final stages and piece it together from there. A story has often come about some time after the initial sketch was done, or having drawn the character over and over without giving it much thought. It varies from character to character.”
Just because the monsters are a success does not mean Fowler has turned his back on his commercial work. His creations have recently been seen on TV in a series of adverts for Kia cars. He worked on the ads with Passion Pictures, an independent production company which has worked on animations for Gorillaz. “The company wanted something different from a ‘normal’ car advert and I was lucky enough to be involved. I guess I’m an illustrator chiefly, but I work in different media including painting, toy design, sculpture and illustration. Mostly my work involves character design, be it for Monsterism or commercial projects,” says Fowler.
This year he has also been working on a project for an alternative energy supplier based in France, creating a human family which has been animated for TV commercials and print adverts for press. “I like to work on these kinds of project because I feel it helps to have a balance alongside what I do with Monsterism. I’m trying to link everything I do outside of my commercial work to Monsterism and the island, so jumping back to the world of humans gives me distance to think about the other things I do.”
Getting things moving
The latest of these ventures is animation, which Fowler hopes will be aired on BBC3. Monsterism has teamed up with the animation wing of comedian Steve Coogan’s production company Baby Cow, which recently brought I Am Not Am Animal to screens. A pilot episode has been made featuring the voice of Coogan and Julia Davis of Nighty Night, and hopes are that these stars’ voices will also be heard in a six-part series, along with some well-known musical names.
“We’ve been working on it now for about five years with different writers,” explains Fowler. “The idea is to tell the stories of the island. I know it is much-repeated, but we want to appeal to The Simpsons market so that children enjoy it but there are some references that go over their heads.”
Putting the monsters onto screen could be seen as a bit like setting them free. “I’ve been at it for a while now,” says Fowler, “trying to make Monsterism more than just the characters and toys by adding back stories and stitching connections between them. I think it’s given the characters a breath of life. I’m more interested in the stories and possibilities rather than just the toys for toys’ sake. I like to think people pick up on that and come up with their own impressions of the island and its inhabitants.”
CONTACT DETAILS
www.monsterism.net

eBoy

eBoy
From a mere online gallery showing their favourite pieces, to a huge portfolio of work for some of the world’s biggest companies, eBoy have stayed true to their style. Garrick Webster discovers the secret of their success
Pixels. Indivisible, perfect and the basic raw material used to create any screen image. To the German illustration trio eBoy, however, they’re treated – or even celebrated – as an artistic medium.



Pixel by pixel the team painstakingly paint some of the most detailed computer artwork ever seen, and they’ve done it for global clients as varied as MTV, Honda and Christian Aid, from Los Angeles to Tokyo and back.
Just like the pixels they work with, eBoy themselves are pretty much indivisible. The group was founded in Berlin by Steffen Sauerteig, Kai Vermehr and Svend Smital in 1997, and has been a close-knit team ever since. This is unlikely to change now, despite eBoy’s recent big news that Sauerteig and Vermehr have moved to Vancouver, in Western Canada. They were already working from different locations in Berlin, conversing via web chats on Flickr when necessary. The only change now, they say, will be the nine-hour time difference.
“Moving to Vancouver was a private decision. I like things to change and was worried about getting bored. I grew up in Venezuela, Germany and Guatemala, so I was kind of used to moving,” reveals Vermehr. “The move is forcing us to rethink many details of our daily life, and I hope it will lead to some fresh ideas for eBoy. Steffen and his family liked the idea and decided to come with us, and Svend is being worked on. He’s a sailor and he has yet to see the local marinas!”
Although eBoy established themselves in Germany – Smital and Sauerteig grew up in East Berlin – they’ve always been an international force. For a number of years they had a member based in New York. One of their first big works was for MTV in 1999: the broadcaster asked them to create some online visuals, after an eBoy illustration featured in the Image Source 100 book the previous year, and work had been published in various magazines.
“At this point a friend of ours, Peter Stemmler, was part of eBoy and he was in New York at the time. I think they called him first because it was easier for them to call somebody in America. After that everything was via email. I think they knew us from our website,” says Smital.
MTV wanted eBoy to design some animated GIFs, as well as a Flash game based on Pac-Man but with eBoy-style graphics. According to Smital, the broadcaster liked their past work and gave them a lot of freedom to interpret the job as they wished. They took the opportunity of working with a big client in their stride, and continued to grow incrementally.
“With every job we do we get new experiences, and we develop ourselves, our technique and our style. I can’t say the MTV project changed how we work. It was just one of many steps we took. It was our first game, we had to work with a programmer, and it was nice to do animations. We also did sound for the first time, which was something special that we weren’t used to,” explains Smital.
The illustration printed in Image Source 100, published in Japan in 1998, was also one of the trio’s first cityscape-style pictures, using their modular system of image creation. Each building, vehicle, plant, animal or person they create for a cityscape is painted pixel-by-pixel in Photoshop, and stored afterwards in a database. Today there are over 2,000 graphics that can be pulled out, used, or modified for a new cityscape commission. The buildings and landforms that define a place are created bespoke for each city, but elements like cars, trees, clouds and dogs can be easily reused.
The first time that they ever created a pixel city for a big league client was working for Adidas in 2002. This time the job came through the agency Leagas Delaney. “Adidas is a very popular brand. A lot of designers like it and wear it themselves – it was a very good client,” reveals Smital.
For this image there wasn’t only the self-imposed limitation of working pixel-by-pixel to deal with: the agency wanted a greyscale city that worked alongside the theme of the ad copy. “It’s great that it’s black and white!” says Sauerteig. “But it looks rather empty compared with our latest works.”
The piece brought eBoy to greater prominence in the industry, and while working for big brands isn’t the most important goal for Sauerteig, Vermehr and Smital, it does help on a number of levels. One is artistic freedom. Clients come to eBoy for their style, and tend to trust them to do their thing. Secondly, the money is good. And finally, the big brands spread their work to broader audiences.
“If you do advertising for a bigger company, then a lot of magazines and other people see it and you get commissions based on this. It advertises us, and at the end of the day we get more money working for bigger clients,” explains Smital. “Of course, if you work for clients like this you have to avoid certain elements. You can’t have any violence or naked people in the picture, but you know that and you don’t do it, so it’s OK. We can do it in our own pictures.”
While Adidas introduced eBoy to sports shoe fanatics (and thereby designer studios around the world), it was the clothing designer Paul Smith who took them into the world of fashion. He discovered their posters in Magma Books in London and purchased some, which were used as decorations at one of his shows. Initial contact was made in 2003, and Smith travelled to Berlin to meet them. They began work in 2004, and the clothing came out in spring and summer 2005.
“It was just a very, very nice collaboration to work on,” Smital discloses. “He was very enthusiastic and nice – really interested in all the designs, and yeah, it was great. It was the first project where we did something for fashion, so it was a new experience. It gave us the chance to do something on real, three-dimensional objects, not just in print.”
“It wasn’t much different, really,” adds Sauerteig. “We only made the designs and not the fashion itself. Paul Smith gave us a lot of freedom. We did many different patterns – with flowers, birds, masks – for the designers to choose from, and we did a London cityscape. The small parts of the city like the people, cars and coats of arms were used all over the collection.”
Much of the work was used in Smith’s Japanese collections too. eBoy have long been popular in the Far East, and today work for one of the biggest agencies in Tokyo, Dentsu. Through Dentsu, eBoy have worked for Honda, creating images of a variety of its vehicles, past and present. More recently, they’ve worked for the Japanese telecommunications company Docomo, creating imagery for the mobile operator’s website.
Some of eBoy’s most popular recent work has been for Coca-Cola Ireland. Coke’s agency, McCann Erickson, asked for an illustrated cityscape of Dublin in 2008. The image works with the new Coke identity, and it proved so popular that the agency came back for three more cities in 2009: Cork, Belfast and Galway. “We get a sketch from them, and then a briefing, and then just start to do our image,” says Smital. “There’s always collaboration. We send our work-in-progress from time to time and we get their feedback, and then we have to modify or change something.”
Usually, changes are minor. One of the secrets to eBoy’s success, and one of the reasons they’re usually offered the kind of work they love, is that from the beginning Sauerteig, Vermehr and Smital only showed their favourite work on their site. eBoy.com was started in 1997, and at the time they were all freelancing, doing the usual kind of design work – brochures, posters, typography and so forth. However, eBoy was the preserve of their favourite work, and even if they did something for a big client, it wasn’t shown unless it was in the eBoy pixelart style. They even distributed a diskette containing artwork for the computer screen.
“We used it more like a gallery where we showcased the work that we did for fun. Nothing was shown just because it was an important client, or whatever. We just displayed the work that we really liked, and it helped a lot because we got commissioned for jobs where we could do what we wanted to, more or less. Not always, of course. But it was very helpful to go public only with the things that we really liked, and not to show something just because it was for a big client,” explains Smital.
That independence of spirit meant that eBoy had a slow start, and grew organically rather than according to any business plan. However, by creating illustrations for mags and newspapers, backed up by the website, their work gradually crept out there and eventually led to eBoy’s advertising work.
Another key to their success has been in their choice of domain name, according to Sauerteig. “From the beginning we got clients from all over the world. This might be because we did our website in English only, and chose a dotcom domain instead of dot-de. In most cases, clients don’t really know where we come from. This makes it easier for them to get in contact with us.”
Strictly including only work they like under the eBoy banner has led to a consistent identity, which they’ve carried through to a whole range of their own products. Cityscapes have been collected together in their book, Pixorama, which took six years to compile. You can now buy eBoy posters, t-shirts, puzzles, stickers, necklaces and toys. The latter are the result of one of their favourite collaborations – with KidRobot. In 2005, KidRobot founder Paul Bunditz approached them to create a range of figurines. They’d always wanted to do a toy set, and readily agreed. Today there are 29 figures across three series of Peecol toys.
Their own merchandise remains a smaller part of the eBoy business than the illustration work, and while the team love having their own lines, there are still several big-name brands they’d like to work with in the future. Apple, Nintendo and Knoll are a few on Sauerteig’s list.
“There are too many to name,” adds Vermehr. “It depends on the project. I’d really love to create a huge, automatic, self-evolving 3D module inspired by sci-fi. Something like World of Warcraft, only not that dwarfy and elvy. More of a weird, hardcore Philip K. Dick kind of setting. And then before I die, I’d like to get fully uploaded to that place.”

Computer Arts Mag Jon Burgerman Interview

Jon Burgerman
Leading the way for a decade of British creatives, he has helped fuse commerciality and artistic passion within illustration. Jon Burgerman tells Garrick Webster how he’s shaped his career so far
From Pepsi cans to gallery walls, colouring books to laptop sleeves, clothing to club flyers, iPhone apps and more, Jon Burgerman’s doodled characters pop up just where you’d expect to see them, and very often in places that you wouldn’t. There’s a reason for this: although Burgerman is an easy-going guy with a quirky sense of humour, he’s always busy working on something, collaborating with other artists and spotting new opportunities. Behind it all is a naturally expressive drawing talent that has enabled him to develop a style that is recognised and adored by creatives around the world. So, how does this star of contemporary illustration get so much done?



Computer Arts: Burgerman projects come through thick and fast. How do you fit it all in?
Jon Burgerman: Some of it feels like working, some of it doesn’t. I think that’s the trick: to do projects – whether commercial or your own project – which don’t seem like work. I think that’s my goal. I don’t know where I find the time – this is what I do with my life. I don’t have a massive other side of my life where I’m rock climbing or go-karting or hang-gliding or deep sea diving. The kind of activities I get up to are all interlinked in what I’m interested in.
CA: How easy is it to divide your time between your own projects and shows or client work?
JB: It’s always been a juggling act. You might be involved in a big commercial project that takes up all your time and have to sort of delay working on your own projects. I’ve always got my own projects; sometimes they overlap, like I’m doing an iPhone app with this company in London called ustwo, and it’s called Inkstrumental – that’s one of those hybrid projects.
CA: If you could have your way, would you only work on your own projects?
JB: I probably would. Having said that, it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t produce any commercial stuff. It would just be all mine, completely led by me. That’s why I set up my brand, Burger, so I can still make commercial products and objects. But, you know, it would be me that decides how things are, what things we make and how they look and stuff. Just ‘cause it’s fun, I guess. It’s fun to be in charge, to have that control and be able to do your own thing.
CA: You spent the summer in the US, went to Munich, now you’re off to China for a show and then you’re in Newcastle. How important is it to be internationally known?
JB: Well, I haven’t gone out of my way to try and become well known, I just get invited to do stuff in different places. I just think that, wherever my work takes me, I will always entertain going. From a purely selfish point of view it allows me to see more of the world and meet new people and that kind of thing, which is great. The more I do it, the more I realise that it’s a good thing; it’s one of the few ‘what do you want to do with your life’ kind of things.
CA: Over in Munich you got on a Wacom Cintiq. What was that like?
JB: It was a collaboration between re:Store, my brand Burger, Wacom and Hewlett-Packard. We put this event together where I was doing live drawings but in a digital way, which I’ve never done before. Wacom lent me one of their super-fancy screens that you can draw on, and then I went over there and just sort of doodled for the day. It descended into doing portraits of people. I had to apologise a lot because I’m not really a portrait painter or anything. Everyone had a twisted, mangled, doodled form. But everyone seemed very pleased with the drawings.
CA: Are you a convert to the Cintiq tablet?
JB: I’m being converted. I have my little process of working, which I’ve probably kept to for the last 10 years, so I’ve never really looked for a different way of doing stuff. It makes a lot more sense to have the drawing on the screen – something clicked. I said to them, ‘I don’t think I would try and recreate what I do with a pen and piece of paper using the screen, but what I would do is kind of come up with a new way of creating new kinds of work using it.’
CA: Your style is so well known now. How do you feel about that?
JB: It’s really nice when people say they recognise my work. It’s just the way I draw. It’s weird because now I get students and graduates emailing me saying they also work in the doodle style. I find that really strange. Maybe there is some sort of doodle style but the way that I draw is just the way that I draw. I didn’t realise it’s becoming a category of drawing in its own right. I always assumed that I drew in a very bad way.
CA: What about when your work is copied by other illustrators?
JB: If a big company does it and they’re selling your work, then it’s an easy thing to go after them. But [then there’s] that case of the recent graduate who hadn’t copied the work, but they’d made new work that was very, very similar. They’d taken some of my pieces and used the same colours and the same composition but the lines were all their own. I was more disappointed with the university than the student. I just thought, ‘How could a student graduate with work that was heavily copying any artist, let alone me?’
CA: How do you keep your work evolving between projects?
JB: Just in a natural development; kind of like my work that’s got text in it, where the typography’s integrated into the drawing. That was a little decision I made a year or two ago, to do that and see how it comes out. A lot of people had said to me that they’d read stuff in my work, and I was like, ‘Ahhh, there’s no words in there. There’s no letter shapes.’ I think a few teenagers with homemade cigarettes had been staring at my work for too long.
CA: You recently turned your talents to making music with Jim Avignon. What’s that been like?
JB: I can make my work in different ways, I think. I’ll always be a drawer, I’ll always paint and create images in some respect, but it doesn’t need to be anchored into just working in that way. I can express the way that I work in other ways, so it could be through performances, it could be through clothes, it could be through music, or it could be through a mixture of all these things.

TADO

TADO,

They might be regarded as the King and Queen of cute character design, but as Garrick Webster discovers, Mike and Katie have a dark side too
Chatting with Katie Tang and Mike Doney of TADO, one can quickly understand why they’ve proven to be such an effective creative force. They are on the same wavelength. Totally. It’s more than just a case of finishing each other’s sentences: they seem to jointly construct everything they do. If it were any other way, things probably wouldn’t have worked because they are – all at once – a couple, a design business and an incredibly dynamic art duo.



Being together all the time must be tough. “It’s not actually,” begins Katie. Mike continues: “Everybody always says, ‘I can’t believe you can be around each other every single day.’ We sort of squabble about work stuff, but no, it never really bothers us.”
TADO’s character design, illustration, online and animation work has made them famous around the world. The Sheffield-based studio have contributed to numerous magazine titles, including the one you’re reading now. They’ve rubbed shoulders with art directors at some of the world’s biggest ad agencies too, working for clients as big as MTV, McDonald’s, Sainsbury’s, Vodafone and the World Wildlife Fund. They’re currently working on a secret project for a top British sports brand, and next month will release a new series with the global toy giant Kid Robot.
“They’re bringing out the second series of the Fortune Pork Mini Plush, which were the first toys that we did in 2004. Kid Robot have picked it up, and it’s a collection of 14 characters,” says Katie. “It’s different to some of our other stuff. This is aimed purely at kids and a fun audience,” interjects Mike. “Yeah, this is a little more on the cute side,” adds Katie, resuming their quick-fire banter. “I don’t know though,” points out Mike, “there are still bones and a bit of blood in there.”
Some casual observers have dismissed TADO’s work as being little more than simple, charming characters. There is, however, a dark undercurrent – particularly in their personal work. Lily the Littlest Cannibal, an exhibition staged last summer at the Magic Pony gallery in Toronto, is a case in point. While there’s undeniably something delightful about Lily, the monster Tulip and their other friends, cannibalism is clearly no laughing matter. The story, conveyed via various paintings, giclee prints and wooden figures, takes place in a dark, gothic, Scandinavian forest. It’s hardly a setting you would call ‘cute’.
The exhibition was held to support the launch of their Cannibal Funfair figures by Kid Robot, but the pair wanted to do something a bit different. Taking a two- month hiatus from commercial work, Lily saw them collaborate with sculptor Mike Hunter, as well as an old lady called Gran Gran. The former carved Cannibal characters expertly from wooden blocks, while the latter crocheted unique (and slightly wonky) plush versions of them. For TADO, the exhibition was a creative reaction to constantly designing toys on a computer – work that Mike describes as “super, mega accurate” – with all the paintings done by hand too.
“The hand-painted nature suited the project more than anything really,” begins Katie. Mike adds: “The whole thing was a fairly nostalgic look at childhood and the computerised stuff was just too perfect; too clinical. It simply didn’t suit it. When we were kids, children’s books were hand-drawn and hand-painted, and that’s the effect we wanted to replicate, really.”
A little bit of bite and a little bit of sauce are themes recurrent in TADO’s non-commercial work. As Katie points out, they once had a phase of putting fangs on everything they drew. Similarly, for a while they gave everything big breasts. It’s no surprise to learn that from early on in their careers they’ve been influenced by off-beat comic books, metal music and punk. They’d spend afternoons lazing around in Forbidden Planet, soaking up characters like Squee from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez. Roman Dirge’s Lenore is also an influence.
Whenever they’re invited to do an exhibition, TADO see it as an opportunity to extend the range of their work, try out different styles and explore different media. When Pictoplasma asked them to do a talk for the event last March, they declined – but they did offer to do an exhibition. The organisers said they could use an underground bar room, and the wheels in Mike and Katie’s heads started turning, in unison, naturally. Private Pandas was born. “We came up with the idea of a panda gentlemen’s club, given that we’d been offered this space that was a basement bar, underground. It had red velour wallpaper with goldleaf on it and...” starts Mike, “...it had big gentleman’s leather seats!” Katie chips in. Mike concludes: “Yeah! Big porno couches everywhere. We thought, ‘This is perfect.’ And the whole idea came from Japan.”
The installation was very much like a maid cafe or cosplay bar in Japan, where some after-hours behaviour considered seedy in the West isn’t so taboo. The aesthetics of venues in Soho, London, influenced them too. TADO erected a dancing pole in the bar, made up a recipe for special panda cocktails, and put panda floor vinyls around the place. They also created giant panda heads for people to wear in the bar, to become a panda alter ego. To cap it off, they hired lingerie models to wear the panda heads, and did a photoshoot to produce cute and sexy images to hang on the walls. Some of these have become part of the permanent collection of an art gallery in New York.
“As soon as the girls put the heads on, it became something completely different,” explains Mike. “You’d sort of find yourself looking into the eyes of a panda and thinking of it as a character, rather than a girl in a hat.”
“And the way that the models were interacting with the head, with the posing as well – you kind of saw it as a panda,” adds Katie. Mike sums it up: “Yeah, we got them to sort of use their hands as much as they could to interact with the facial expressions of the panda. It was something very different, and quite unusual for us. It was a really, really interesting learning curve.”
Bizarre to some, events like Lily the Littlest Cannibal and Private Pandas help TADO gain exposure with different audiences. Fans of their cute work might be a bit confused by cannibalistic toddlers or sexy pandas, but it has won them attention from new crowds. Within those crowds are art directors and creative directors who are looking for versatility and style. And for TADO, that spells work.
Right now, the pair are working on a top secret project. A big, American client has hired them to design the characters and backgrounds for an online game, with numerous levels. The project is so big, says Mike, it’s going to take nine months to complete. And when it’s ready, it’s going to land in the educational sector – so don’t expect more sexy pandas.
“It’s nice because it’s a different audience to some of our other stuff,” explains Mike. “It has to be quite PC because of the nature of the client, and being American they view our work slightly differently than perhaps a British audience would. I think some of our work is quite British in its humour, so we possibly have to be a little more literal with them.”
Despite their deeply artistic streak, Mike and Katie are anything but precious when it comes to commercial projects. They had no qualms about working for McDonald’s last summer. In collaboration with their friends at the animation company Red Star, they produced a 30-second ad for Irish TV, promoting the multi-coloured Coke glass giveaway that the fast food chain had running. The colours come together to form a rainbow in front of a TADO landscape.
Another job that has put their work in front of millions of people was their Sainsbury’s cereal packaging. They created six different boxes, each with a print run of five million, for children’s cereal flavours. “Originally they wanted it so that you could stack all six boxes next to each other and it would make a whole landscape picture, but that kind of went out the window towards the middle, didn’t it?” says Katie.
“It was simply because Sainsbury’s boxes have to be displayed next to the competitor’s box really, so they couldn’t be in a line together,” Mike replies. “They had to go next to the Corn Flakes or whatever. We kind of lost that idea halfway through.”
“It’s nice to go to Sainsbury’s and see your cereal boxes on the shelves, or your poster on a billboard or something,” adds Katie. “It’s exciting. It’s something you can tell your mum about, and then your mum will go, ‘Oooo that’s really good’.”
As for the future, neither Mike nor Katie rave about any grand ambitions. TADO are happy just continuing to do their thing. They took a break in Japan last year, which clearly sparked their creativity, and they’d like to make a return visit. Another aim is to do more animation, and to become more independent in terms of how they produce some of their output. This means learning some 3D software, because at the moment they turn to friends when they want to create characters in 3D. “We’ve actually been trying to teach ourselves Cinema 4D, which is like trying to teach yourself Chinese. That’s something we’d really like to do,” says Mike. Katie continues: “We’ve got so many ideas and we’re picky, and we always want to do a little bit more.” Mike finishes the thought: “Yeah, the pair of us are control freaks when it comes to our own work.”

(interveiw from Computer Arts Magazine)