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Doodling his way through life – Meet Arosh Thevadatil a.k.a ‘Doodle Muni’

Doodling his way through life – Meet Arosh Thevadatil a.k.a ‘Doodle Muni’

Interview with Arosh Thevadatil

Doodling his way through life – Meet Arosh Thevadatil a.k.a 

‘Doodle Muni’

Arosh Thevadtail, Illustrator and Doodler.

16th May, 2019

What started off as rough scribbling done on the last sheets of notebooks, has evolved into an art form by itself and a medium of self expression – Doodles. Researchers have even deciphered the reasons behind different types of doodles we do. With gaining popularity for doodles, imagination is the only limit.

Arosh Thevadathil, popularly known as Doodlemuni is an illustrator from God’s own country, Kerala.  His creative doodles on everyday life, couples, famous personalities and social issues have brought attention from across the country. He believes that an artist can instil emotions among people through his artwork, and continues to do the same.

Arosh came up with the name ‘Doodlemuni’, as he wanted to depict himself as a serious guy who scribbles humorous snippets. He wanted to add a ‘Desi touch’ to the name, to make it attractive.

Having been good at art right from childhood, he has won several awards in national level competitions. He learnt the basics for different types of art from Mr Vishnu Namboodiri and went ahead to get a degree in Fine Arts from RLV College.

His work is characterized by its wit; it’s packed with strange symbols, cute little characters and humorous scenes. He works on traditional and digital mediums, as the situation demands. He uses Photoshop, Illustrator and Coral Painter, to make adorable doodles.

Touching people’s Heart through Art

Even though he was born and brought up in Kerala, he understood the real beauty and culture of the place only when he moved out. Many of his artworks are based on the culture and places of  Kerala. “I approach my artwork from a detached standpoint”, says Arosh.

When Kerala was deluged by the heavy rains, Arosh was in Bangalore, and spent several sleepless nights horrified by the visuals he saw on TV. He arranged for materials to be sent to the disaster relief camps, and did a special tribute to the unsung heroes who risked their lives to save others.

Among those works, the one that received maximum attention was the rescue of the pregnant woman on a helicopter. “Seeing that work, Commander Vijay Varma, the man who undertook the mission, called me and wished me personally. I consider that the highest recognition that my work has ever received”, he says.

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All about the Funcher shop

Having worked in Ogilvy, he got a lot of recognition from big corporates. Tired of having to follow guidelines, he longed to do something creative on his own without any limitations.

Suresh Ramakrishnan and him, having shared the common vision, vibe and passion for creating art, started their own venture “The Funcher Shop”. Just like how Puncture shop fills air, The Funcher shop fills happiness. They have numerous products like T-shirts, mugs, bags, clocks, based on various themes surrounding riders, Malayalis, Bengalis, Bangalore, movie themes.., 

“I don’t need anything else when I immerse myself in art”.

He believes that criticisms shape up a person’s career and make them strong. He works on his ideas and style based on the feedback he receives.

According to him, every project is a dream project. Nonetheless, he wishes to learn about Bangalore and make artworks on it.

On being asked if he has hit the rock bottom, he says. “There was a number of instances where I felt like my hands were tied and I would never get back on my feet. But, if you are diligent and are determined, you can always come back stronger and better from any hopeless situation”.

He views art as his life. His art is a result of his emotions, whether sadness or happiness.

“I don’t need anything else when I immerse myself in art”, he says.

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When asked if he wants to travel back in time to the future or past, he says, “As there were a number of things I could not do in my past due to certain circumstances. I’ll certainly return and correct my mistakes if given the chance”.

Biggest pet peeve? “For each artwork, artists do a lot of research, refer to different works and make multiple scribbles. We ponder over and analyse it before composing the piece on canvas. Just when the work is about to get completed, a person who knows nothing about the effort put in and one who has no artistic eye comes along asking for changes on behalf of the client. It is a menace when they interfere in the artistic process”.

“An artist can conquer the whole world through his art”.

His advice to the budding artists is to never give up.He also feels that social media validation does not define anyone as an artist.

“An artist can conquer the whole world through his art. An artist can make people happy, sad, thoughtful etc. Above all, the artist himself can find joy in his art and share it with society. So even if no one notices you at first, there will come a time when they will accept, love and celebrate you”, he says.

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Meet Shesh Kiran – An artist who communicates through art.

Meet Shesh Kiran – An artist who communicates through art.

Interview with Shesh Kiran

Meet Shesh Kiran, who communicates through art

Shesh Kiran, Animator and illustrator

20th May,2019

Shesh kiran is a professional animator and a self-taught caricature artist, from Bangalore, who lost his hearing ability in his early childhood. Over the years, he developed an interest in art. He never saw his disability as a shortcoming, instead focused on what he does the best – Art.

Here is an inspiring snippet about his journey as an artist.

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it”.

~Helen Keller

When Shesh Kiran was born, he did not cry. This made the doctors put him in a special care unit. The heavy dose of antibiotics given affected the micro strands of hair in his ears, due to which he lost his hearing ability. This was undetected until they observed that he was not getting terrified by loud noises.

When he turned 2, his family’s attempt to get him to use hearing aids failed as he was reluctant to wear them. But this did not stop him from learning new things. He started comprehending things in his own way.  

He started sketching at a very young age.  Eventually, he also learnt writing from his elder sister. “It was easy to teach him about tangible things, but we didn’t know how to make him understand what intangible things were. For example, he would ask what a ‘week’ is. But, he somehow figured it out”, says his family.

Being a huge fan of comic books such as Tin-Tin; Jughead; Asterix and Archies, he used to imitate the comics in his own drawing style. In his schooldays, the other kids used to ask him to draw for them. Tired of the requests, he started charging five rupees for each. He even conducted drawing classes for few neighbourhood kids.

Want To Create Your Custom Illustration With Shesh Kiran?

Drawings done by Shesh in UKG

His family recognized his talent and encouraged him to pursue art seriously after his 12th grade. He joined animation classes and learnt Flash; 2D & 3D animation and specialized in character design. “His animation always stood out from the rest”, says his father. He recalls how his first digital art was executed in MS Paint.

He has worked for various design and animation companies such as Parampadham; Media Genie; Stump Vision; Foresee and ZVKY Design studio until now, on various projects such as children Magazines, animations for live scoreboards, making characters for games such as Farmville, advertisements and so on.

He’s also a freelance caricature artist, on the weekends.

“People get offended when I exaggerate their features, which defeats the whole purpose of caricatures”, he says. He makes caricatures of couples, pets and famous personalities.

His work has been featured in many magazines. He says that he was on cloud nine when his caricature of Bal Thackeray got published in the official magazine of RSS.

“However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at”.

Shesh Kiran believes that our brain is wired in such a way that if one of our five senses is weak, the others become stronger. His advice for aspiring artists is to keep sketching; practice drawing imaginary characters and keep it simple.

 

Click on the links below to see more of his artworks

http://sheshkiran.blogspot.com/

https://sheshkiran.tumblr.com/

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Life in a metro – Meet Samar Khan, the guy behind quirky doodles of The Delhi Metro

Life in a metro – Meet Samar Khan, the guy behind quirky doodles of The Delhi Metro

Interview with Samar Khan

Life in a metro – Meet Samar Khan, the guy behind quirky doodles of the Delhi Metro

Samar Khan, Freelance Illustrator

27th May,2019

Commuting through metro has become an indispensable part of our lives. While most of us spend time listening to music, reading books, looking into others’ phones or just fussing about the crowd, Samar Khan, a software developer and a freelance illustrator, is creating insane doodles on his way back from work. He brings life on the tired faces of unsuspecting metro commuters, through his doodles.

Here’s what Samar has to say to Stoned Santa about his journey. (Quite literally)

Tired of spending countless hours on metro trains, everyday for about 6 years, Samar decided to productively utilise the time by capturing pictures and making interesting doodles on them. He says that artists like Subwaydoodles, Lucas Leviton and Donna Adi inspired him to introduce this concept in India.

Started off as  a hobby, today he has 33k followers who adore his doodles. “I’ve always loved drawing since I was a kid. It all started on the last pages of my notebooks. I would scribble to kill my time in classes, but I never knew that this would lead to something this big”, he says.

He views drawing as an escape from the weariness of work life. Never being able to draw well traditionally, he’s ever grateful to his phone, Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and his iPad for introducing him to limitless possibilities. Most of his characters are imaginary, while he draws inspiration for few from TV shows and movies.

Why only metro?  “I spend most of my time commuting in it, and I think people can relate to it better because of the familiarity. Nonetheless, I would love to experiment on different places”, says Samar who has posted over 150 doodles on his page.

He has worked for many major clients, which includes Adidas, and hopes to work for some super cool clients.

Metro Doodles by Samar Khan

When asked if he would like to travel to the future or past, “Future, for sure. I am always curious about the mankind’s future”, he says. He jokes that delay in payments is his biggest pet peeve.

The famous saying, “Journey is often more beautiful than the destination”, is indeed true for Samar Khan.

Next time, when you’re on a metro aimlessly staring into the oblivion, grab your phone and check out Samar Khan’s mind-blowing doodles on his Instagram page @metrodoodle.

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Whatever it takes – Yadvender Singh on Digital Illustrations and Superheroes

Whatever it takes – Yadvender Singh on Digital Illustrations and Superheroes

Interview with Yadvender Singh Rana

Whatever it takes! – Yadvender Singh on Digital illustrations and Superheroes

Yadvender Singh Rana, Illustrator

24th May,2019

Don’t you often marvel as to what is the one thing that makes people successful? There may be some stark changes that you might want to bring about in your life. Read on to find out how the very talented Yadvender Singh Rana, an illustrator from Punjab achieved success through his brilliant renditions of DC and Marvel characters. He has done it all, and whatever it takes.

What made you to start drawing superheroes?

When I was about five years old, Shaktimaan was aired on Doordarshan. My mother used to draw Shaktimaan in her own style and show them to me. I was fascinated by this and started tracing comics using carbon sheets.

DC and Marvel comics were not being sold in Punjab as they thought it had inappropriate content for kids. So, I used to save up money in order to google these images, in an internet café and draw them at home. This was the start and I haven’t stopped drawing ever since.

When did you get your first big break? How was the journey Until then?

In 2018, three days after ‘The Infinity War’ was released, the Spidey-Iron man scene was so heart touching that I posted an art work on it. This post broke the internet. That was my first big break!

“I was so overwhelmed by it that I could hardly feel my body”.

JOSH BROLIN (Thanos) shared your art work. What was your reaction to that?

On the night of May 26th, I was sleeplessly working to complete an art work.  I posted it at 2 am and went to sleep. I woke up, disturbed by the incessant buzzing of my phone. I had over a hundred messages and notifications on Instagram, congratulating me.Coincidentally, it was my birthday and I thought that my inbox was being flooded with wishes.

I opened Instagram and saw that Josh had shared my post. I was so overwhelmed by it that I could hardly feel my body. Anyway, I didn’t let success get into my head because the show must go on. After all, with great power comes great responsibility.

 

Coincidence or spoilers?

I hadn’t watched the Endgame until a week after it released. I started to gain a lot of followers suddenly, and many started accused me of posting the spoilers. I had no idea what they were talking about.

After I watched the movie, I realized that three of the drawings that I had done over a year ago came to life in the movie. 

I had made paintings of hypothetical situations, like – Thor holding pieces of Thanos’ head; Cap holding Thor’s Hammer, and Iron man wearing the Infinity Gauntlet. It’s so astonishing that these actually came true.

Marvel or DC?

I’m a fan of both. I started off by drawing DC characters. I was so excited for “Justice League”, but when the movie came out, it broke my heart. As an artist, I should be unbiased and work on whatever is trending. Marvel has been in the trend lately, that’s why I post about them.

 DC movies are for a much more mature audience, but the current generation is young, they want optimism, punch lines and sarcasm. Marvel has all of these and they have executed their universe so well. I could say that when it comes to comics, DC is better and when it comes to movies, Marvel is better.

If you could be a superhero for one day, who would you be?

Superman, anyday! That guy has got it all- speed, flight and he’s not vulnerable to anything.

 Do you wish to diversify your artwork?

I want to work on whatever is trending in the pop culture. I plan on getting into games, TV shows and music bands.

Is there any dream project that you’d like to talk about?

I want to officially work for Marvel. Currently, the same pattern is being used for all Marvel posters. I wish to break that rhythm and make interesting posters.

Do you have any advice for budding artists?

I have one advice – PLEASE SKETCH EVERYDAY.  I think it is extremely important for an artist to sketch everyday. It need not be perfect, it can be a rough outline. One must practise sketching the complete human anatomy, I cannot stress enough on this point. You should give your brain a rough idea before starting any drawing.

Famous artists like M F Hussain, Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci made abstract paintings. Many of them take that as an inspiration and forget that they need to master shapes and patterns before getting to the stage where you’ve moved past them.

Nobody is born with talent. No one is born with anything except flesh and blood. We are what we choose to do, and do repeatedly. Or, as Bruce Wayne says, “It’s not who we are underneath, but what we do that defines us”.

 

 

 

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Putting the ‘aw’ in drawings

Putting the ‘aw’ in drawings

Interview with Alicia Souza

Putting the ‘aw’ in drawings: Alica Souza on illustrations, moving countries and more.

Alicia Souza, Illustrator

20th May,2019

Alicia Souza is a successful entrepreneur, freelance illustrator and a loving pet mommy. Her deep rooted passion towards art made her move from Melbourne to Bangalore, to start a career as a freelance illustrator and eventually start her own store that sells over a hundred varieties of happy products that can make your day. She started off as a shy girl and today, “Alicia Souza” is a well established brand and she has over 219k followers on Instagram who adore her illustrations.

She believes that hard work and a cup of coffee can take you a long way. Here are excerpts from when we caught up with Alicia for a quick chat and many giggles.

Art is perceived differently by everyone. What does “Art” mean to you personally?

Art is an expression of how someone feels, in any form of creative output. Art becomes more meaningful when there’s some sort of emotion attached to it.

What are your earliest memories of drawing? Did you always enjoy drawing as a kid?

When I was 4 or 5 years old, I remember waking my mom up to show the scooter I drew with chalk, on the wall. I’m not sure if it looked like one, but in my head it was the most marvellous thing I had ever seen. 

Every kid loves drawing, some more than the other. Surprisingly, I didn’t draw much as a kid.

“Being a freelancer was my worst nightmare. But turns out, it was the best thing that happened to me.”

Being a freelancer has it’s ups and downs. What are your thoughts on the same?

When I started off as an illustrator, I struggled a lot as I was not familiar with any other illustartors in Bangalore. I was literally shooting in the dark. For someone like me, who’s very shy, being a freelancer was my worst nightmare. But turns out, it was the best thing that happened to me.

Just like any field, it has it’s pros and cons. I get to choose what I can work on. I can plan a sudden vacation, and not have to beg for leaves. At the same time, others’ holiday season is my busy season. Despite that, I still love what I do.

How do you think technology has changed the dynamics of art? 

Technology has changed everything. It helps to reach out to a huge audience soon. Digital softwares have introduced us to endless possibilities. I’m a hard core user of Photoshop and it’s biggest admirer. Even though the joy that comes out of drawing traditionally is more, mixed media has made everything much simpler. 

Few creative gifts from Alicia’s store.

Your career demands you to have a constant social media presence. Do you ever get frustrated with it?

 Funnily, many people have asked me this. I don’t get frustrated with social media at all. Maybe it’s because I don’t have to pretend to have fun, or look like a goddess all the time. I just post about my everyday life and nothing out of the ordinary, so I don’t feel pressurized.

Any current projects you’d like to talk about, and any dream project you’d like to be a part of?

I’m a freelancer and I have a merchandise store. Currently, I’m looking forward to improve my brand by designing new products. Everything is a bit of experimentation, so I hope it works out.

I do have a couple of dream projects, but I can’t talk about them yet.

 

“I believe that ultimately, everything works out for the best”

If you were to give up on either Chips or coffee, what would it be?

That’s a hard question to answer. I would never be able to give up on coffee or chips. This is sad, but I’d say ‘Chips’ as it’s something I should give up.

If you could travel back in time and talk to your former self, what would the conversation sound like?

I wouldn’t say anything. If I said that everything would be okay, my former self would’ve gotten lazy. I believe that ultimately, everything works out for the best. So, I’d let her deal with it. Although I doubt if I’ll take my own advice, in hindsight, I’d ask my younger self to sign all the important documents and maintain good paperwork.

Chips don’t lie.

Being an artist in India takes a lot of courage and determination. Who has been the greatest support throughout your journey?

It’s going to sound like an Oscar speech, but there are so many people who’ve supported me throughout the journey. My parents were extremely supportive when I came to Bangalore to do something outrageous; My friend, Bill wood was my mentor; My husband George, being a practical person gives me realistic advices; I can never forget the times when my brother’s wife sat in the stalls I put up to; My partner, Sourabh and the entire team are my biggest support and I can’t thank them enough.

Many budding illustrators look up to your work. What advice would you like to give them?

Stay diligent, be kind and do your work well.

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