We know that when we ask Igor Ventura to make or be a part of something he is going to commit himself 100% and always have a real underlying story to what he creates. So when he became another featured artist in The Wild ones Mini Series, we knew not to just take his characters for face value. We asked him what each of his characters really meant and here is what he had to say…
When Kidrobot invited me to be at the Wild Ones Dunny series, I
immediately decided I wanted all 3 designs to be around the same
theme, so they could tell a story together. One of the first ideas I
had was having 3 different animals representing the Military branches
– an eagle for the Air Force, a Lion for the Army and a Blowfish for
the Marines. But since I could only have one design with sculpting, I
thought it would be hard to make it work.
Another concept I wanted to explore was further developing an universe
I had previously created called Neandertown, and was trying to come up
with different characters that could fit into this wild and predatory
world.
While I was brainstorming with my fellow Red Mutuca friend Luiz
Unreal, he suggested that I could try to get some inspiration from the
George Orwell book Animal Farm. I had already read the book when I was
a child, so I was familiar with the story and thought it would fit
perfectly with the theme for the series.
I made a lot of research, watched the animated film based on it, and
came up with 3 main characters from the book that could tell a great
story:
– A Berkshire boar named Napoleon, that leads the animals against the
humans, but later turns into the very thing he was against;
– A combination between a donkey named Benjamin, one of the oldest and
wisest animals on the farm, and a horse named Boxer, a loyal, hard
working and respectable cart-horse, although quite naive and gullible;
– A Sheep, showing limited understanding of the Animalism and the
political atmosphere of the farm; yet nonetheless blindly supporting
Napoleon’s ideals. Since they don’t have a name on the book, I named
it Aries, after the scientific name of sheep, Ovis Aries.
The only animals from the book that wear clothes are the Pigs, but I
gave myself some artistic freedom and decided to give the other
characters clothes as well, to help developing their personalities. I
also used phrases from the book printed on their backs, to better
represent what each of them was about. The color palette I used was
also thought to give a vintage feel and pay homage to George Orwell’s
masterpiece.
Crazy huh? Collect these characters and more on Friday, February 9th on www.kidrobot.com
