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Master Toda

About the artist

Joao Lauro Fonte

• View artist’s website

sonmi

Words from the curator:

You asked for it, and now here it is in all its mutant glory!

Artist Location:

From Brazil, but currently living in London 

Tell us about this design:

I remember thinking as a child that Yoda looked like a mutant frog.

Were you a big fan of Star Wars as a kid?

Yes I was, even though I was much more into cartoons such as 'Dungeons and Dragons' and 'Thundercats'. It took me a while to fully enjoy Star Wars.

What was your favorite movie growing up?

Definitely 'Back to the Future', 'Goonies' and 'Willow'. I just couldn't get enough of those movies.

How do you come up with your ideas?

Each idea has its own story, but they are usually a connection between one thing that I already had stored in my mind and something that I've just seen. That's why, to me, it's very important to be out on the streets everyday, as the things I see on a daily routine, together with childhood references are what make my ideas get born. However, in case I don't have any idea and need to come up with something, I normally sit in front of the computer and start to pull random images from Google and fffound and then I try to make connections between them. It works pretty well for me and a lot of designs have come from that practice.

What's your art process like, from concept to completion?

After coming up with the concept, I look for references that will help me build the scene. In this particular Toda design, I went after several pictures of toads, frogs and Yoda himself to see how I would pull the design off: from which angle I was going to draw it, what the character's expression would be like, which colour palette I was going to pick, this sort of stuff. In the next stage, I sit to draw and I do it 100% digitally. I tend to create a lot of files during the process, because every time I draw a new part of the design, I will save it as new file, which means I end up with 20 to 30 psds for the same piece. Then eventually I place all of them side-by-side and decide what's the best thing of each version. As a result, very often, the final piece is a mix of the best bits of each file