uring the last year what have you been ...so it just helps everyone to be involved?
working on?
Yeh but gradually it’s become a bit more of a... well now we’re a
Well at the moment I’ve just been designing some stuff for Ltd company and we have a studio where we all work etc... but
GreenThing which is a website that’s trying to raise awareness we still work on individual projects and then on group projects.
about green issues. I’ve designed this little character called a So as an illustrator it’s quite nice, you can work on a group
Greenthing for the various different things they’re trying to project and step outside of yourself, because as an illustrator
get across, like ‘don’t use so much electricity’ - so there’s a you have to have a fairly defined style that people can recognise
Greenthing and he’s got plugs for a head, stuff like that. so it’s nice to be able to step away from that.
Did you have any qualms in taking on the animation work You do have an instantly recognisable drawing style,
you’ve done for MTV? what was it specifically that allowed you to find your own
direction?
No I didn’t really have any qualms to be honest, how do you
mean? I guess it just kind of came around that way really. There’s a
distinctive line quality that I’ve stuck to, that was something that
Just that a lot of people would argue that the stuff that’s quite early on I definately thought people responded to. So I
on MTV isn’t the best, the whole American Hip-Hop thing developed that side I guess, but to me it’s more about getting
that’s going on... ideas across.
No that’s true, I wouldn’t disagree with that entirely, but So it’s more about the content for you?
the stuff I did was actually with MTV Asia so it was a quite
different setup really. I went out to Singapore and Kuala Kind of, yeh I would say that. I like using text things as well
Lumpur as a kind of build up to it, it’s interesting when you go within things but I think there’s something really nice about
out there and see how they’re building all these new buildings, getting ideas across purely visually if you can. Although people
like in Singapore they just ripped the heart out of the town. So always respond well to text, it draws you in, once you can read
for the animation we tried to get that in a little bit, like there’s it, it’s like you’re reading an image, so people see more in it I
an animation of this old guy sat in an old hut with old music think that way every now and then.
then suddenly this big building comes in and drops on him.
So you can look at it either way, maybe you think that the new Do you have a show up at the moment?
building is a good thing, or maybe you don’t, it makes it two-
pointed I suppose. Uh, no. I did a show up in Berlin a little while ago with Jon
Burgerman and Ian Stevenson
With your animation work, after the success of Monkey
Dust, are you planning any more projects in a similar vein Cool, how do you feel about working in a gallery based
or do you want to go in a new direction? way?
To be honest I’ve been concentrating on illustration more since It feels quite alien to me, although it’s something that I’d like
then really. The trouble with animation is that it becomes quite to do more of because it allows you to create original artwork
a beast and it can get out of hand. It’s an awful lot of work as which is quite a nice thing to do.
well. But I’m working on this Greenthing at the moment for
instance and doing some animation work on that. In the studio It must be quite a high-pressure situation to put your own
were I work in we have animators, I’m not strictly an animator. show on, to say ‘this is me, come and look’...
I kind of design the characters and stuff, so although I do a bit
of animation I think I’m really an illustrator. Yeh it is, and it’s a lot of work as well, it takes quite a while to
get everything together for something like that, especially when
Can you tell us a little about your setup with the Peepshow you’ve got other commercial jobs on in the meantime, it can
Collective? be hard to find the time. But these days I’ve started working
in a much more... like in the old days I used to do really rough
Yeh, we’re a group of nine people, and we share a studio. We sketches on whatever piece of paper was around but these days
set it up just as a website to keep costs down for ourselves I’m trying to make it have a nicer finish, so with all the jobs I’m
really, and for a little network of people that we could all lean doing I’m actually building up a collection of work that I can
on, you know, helping to go and see clients together or... exhibit in the future and see how my work has developed.
•GUM
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