The amazing and talented Illustrator / Animator Aaron Brady from Navan in Co. Meath talks to Scruff Daddy about art, illustration and his weird and wonderful characters.

What is your background in art?

My first artistic memory is sitting beside this girl in primary school and we were given pages from this colouring book to colour in for the afternoon. The teacher must have been hungover or something. Anyway the girl beside me, her markers were almost wasted so I showed her the ‘draw slow’ technique for getting maximum coverage from an almost wasted marker. She looked at me as if I’d performed some sort of magic trick. At that moment I felt like I was finally good at something. Maybe that’s when it all started.

How did you get into animation / illustration?

I grew up on a lot of animation. The first show I ever remember watching was Teddy Ruxpin. I was a Saturday morning TV child. Sat on the floor from 6am watching the DJ Kat show with a bowl of Coco Pops wrapped in my duvet. I grew up on shows like the The Paw Paw Bears, The Racoons, Care Bears, Sylvanian Families, The Moomins, and later The Real Ghostbusters and Thundercats.

When I got a Super Nintendo It only made matters worse. I fell in love with games like Bubsy the Bobcat, Super Mario World, Tiny Toon Adventures, Cool Spot, Super Ghouls and Ghosts and the likes. In school I loved creative writing. Drawing and making shit up were the only things I was ever anyway interested in. I knew I didn’t want a normal job when I left school so animation was always the logical step for me. It was the only creative career path I knew of at the time that I had a chance of getting work from so off I went.

Where did you study?

I Went to Ballyfermot for a year where I did my portfolio course. Good times indeed but the lure of a course in Dundee in Scotland was too much and I spent the following 5 years there getting my BA and MSC in Animation.

How did you find the college experience?

Amazing. Just amazing. Made some of the best friends and memories of my life there.

How would you describe your style?

An art theorist might say something like It’s a collection of motifs, shapes and colours arranged and connected through line and form to create a gestalt, entities that evolve, emote and transmit meaning through their various physiognomies.

What is your artistic process?

I generally start drawing or writing ideas in my sketchbook. I put on my music and escape for a little while. Hours can pass. I’m happy drawing. I normally then take a photo of whatever I have drawn and then colour it on the computer. With my photo work I just carry my camera with me and hope for something interesting to appear.

Who / what influences you?

I like that Floyd line, "All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be."

Do your characters live in our world or do we live in theres?

This world is like that silvery stuff on the front of a scratchcard. Their world lies underneath.

Any plans to develop a cartoon with them?

Yeah definitely. I’m currently developing something. Just need to take a deep breath before I start production.

I get a sense of humour but also a sense of macabre in your characters, and even an Irishness in them. Am I wrong?

No, you’re right. I like a little bit of ambiguity. I just want to create empathy first and foremost. I’d also like to say something about the human condition. I find that the less explicit a piece of work the more meaning that it’s inherently charged with. I like that.

Whats your favourite movie?

I don’t know about a favourite movie but the movies I wouldn’t mind watching over and over are Amelie, Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind and Finding Nemo. I seen The Wackness the other day too and I enjoyed that.

What are you listening to right now?

It changes all the time. My iTunes top 25 most played includes songs from the following artists. Don’t judge me. Jamie T, Passion Pit, Phoenix Alkaline Trio, Lady Gaga, Fight like Apes, Beyonce, Coldplay, Modest mouse .

How do you promote yourself?

I go around telling curators that I’m going to be a really famous artist and that they’ll regret not having me in their gallery. They like that.

What are your plans for the future?

I want to travel through time and space. I want to be happy and I want to be in love.

Check it: www.linesanddesigns.blogspot.com