Creator's Corner Triple Feature: Meet the artists of the Splat Squad!

CREATOR’S CORNER

These artists at spectrum have all started their own merch stores!

The art of filmmaking, especially animated films, requires a keen eye for colour and detail, and making eye-catching characters! That’s one thing these three guys have in abundance! They have bonded over their love of art and collaborated in a team they have called the Splat Squad!

Meet Sam Clark, Hunter Cullen and Anthony Campoli, three exceptional artists!

What got you all into doing your art at first?

Anthony: Music creation is my first and most beloved artistic expression. When I was about 15 years old, I would listen to a lot of hip-hop which gave me the urge to produce some instrumentals. I became more attached to different shades of electronic music and stuck with that genre since. With drawing and animation, that was much more recent, I did animation in a more experimental direction. While learning to draw, I became friends with Hunter and Sam and found their art inspiring, thus I decided to do some character art of animals and other anthropomorphized objects on the side. I then went from animals to robots since I enjoyed drawing them more.

Hunter: I was inspired by another artist named Vivienne Medrano. Ever since I saw more of her artwork and animations, the more I see the beauty of being an artist. Now sometimes, everything inspires me.

Sam: I started drawing when I was little.

How did you all start collaborating?

Anthony: I slowly became more intrigued by their art and style that we just decided to draw each other’s creations. There were never any big collaborative undertakings. Just art requests and trades.

Hunter: We all met at the Spectrum Productions.. We all had just great ideas and art styles. We enjoyed talking and sharing what interests us.

Sam: It was back at Spectrum a couple years ago.

How have you changed your art (technique, software, talent) over the years?

Hunter: It’s a fun story! I started to draw on paper a lot, then I got into digital art. It was very new to me back then. I didn’t have a drawing tablet so I just used the mouse to draw. I took pictures of the sketches I drew on paper and traced them. After a while I got a drawing tablet for my birthday. Now I can make my own digital sketches and go crazy drawing without using a lot of paper. (I do take a break from the screen though, lol!)

Sam: My art style has changed a lot, Still need to work on hands lol

What’s been your experience with animation?

Anthony: I’ve taken the Film Animation program at Concordia University where I made experimental films that featured simple figures. Before that program my art was just characters, but eventually I became really interested in mixing 2D animation with image manipulation. I made my own music to express my thoughts and perspective on the world, especially through my graduating film “Splitting” which expresses non-literally my experience with ASD.

Hunter: Still in the works. I haven’t been animating a lot that often because I get scared of screwing up. I want to make animating my new hobby, I just need to avoid distractions as much as possible. And I need to do more tutorials.

Sam: Animatics are easy for me, I could try something like Martin Wall’s Mysterious House.

What were your biggest inspirations for the characters/film?

Anthony: I was inspired to make Briskman by the film This is Spinal Tap my father showed me, which is a mockumentary about a rock’n’roll band. I combined my enjoyment of that film along with Spectrum’s superhero universe which is a staple at the studio. I thought it would be great to poke fun at that universe by making a purposefully unlikable (former) superhero character that you don’t root for.

Hunter: I was inspired to make Race Chairs from this minute-long video called Crazy Chair FCCD by Fried Chili Cheese Dogs where this guy tries to come up with a video idea and his chair takes him on a funny little adventure with stop-motion animation!

Sam: Electeen is inspired from Raiden from Mortal Kombat and a little bit of Sonic.

Is there any other art you like to do? Any other creative exploits?

Anthony: I enjoy making video art and cover art for my own music since I find it stimulating and beneficial for helping me stand out when releasing my music. Drawing has become a random free-time thing for me. I’m now primarily interested in music making and sound mixing/editing. All in all I’m really glad that through friends and school I was able to practice drawing because that’s now a skill I have that I didn’t before.

Hunter: I once did wood-burning art at my school. That was pretty good! I also really enjoy photography. I just find a very inspirational area or thing and I take a picture of it. But I want to learn how to do really beautiful art like the movie Wolfwalkers. And I like to make some comics as well.

Sam: I’ll see what I can do...