Ektopia

Anyone who visits regularly will be familiar with Pictoplasma. I’ve written about Pictoplasma more times than anyone else on Ektopia I think. The name itself has been added to my spell checker’s dictionary (and i need a spell checker, believe me!) and I feel eternally tied to all of their other books (of which I own all of) and their website. Looking back, I can pretty much assure myself that my interest in art completely originates from discovering Pictoplasma a couple of years back. Seeing drawn, painted, computer generated characters, each with their own…characters was pretty inspiring and I can see exactly where it took me too via toy design to artist edition toy design to the artists’ art itself and for that I’m very grateful. Anyway, the standard of Pictoplasma’s main two titles, Pictoplasma & Pictoplasma 2, left me with great expectations of what would come next. I was also apprehensive too, as I wasn’t quite sure that they would be able to better themselves again. What they did was somewhat unexpected. The previous titles had all been published by Die Gestalten but after their success they decided to publish a couple of titles themselves; the quirky Colour Me, Pictoplasma and the stunning Characters In Motion DVD and book. They had proved that they could publish a book every bit as impressive as anyone else could have but nothing quite prepared me for this…

The Character Encyclopaedia is one of those books that it’s very difficult not to judge by its cover due to it being such a classy affair. This time it’s because it’s leather bound, embossed with a matrix of characters and letter-pressed with silver coloured leaf! Yeah, you read that all correctly! Also, its 396 pages look like so many more due to the books format being a little bit smaller than the standard A4 styled larger size. This gives it a real chunky look and feel which is topped off with a couple of blue ribbon page marks. Like I said, it’s hard not to expect this book to be a classic before you’ve even seen inside.

Luckily, the book doesn’t disappoint once you get inside. Picto’ 1 & 2 catalogued characters by the medium (hand drawn, plushes, digital, 3D etc.). However, The Character encyclopaedia catalogues a new collection of images by species! Yup, species! Again, it’s a quirky move when you first hear about it but it lends itself to a whole new way of appreciating character design. Now you can easily see the evolution as well as the cultural differences between branches of characters’ family trees! What a great idea. It’s no longer just a collection of the finest character design from around the world but now it’s also a kind of reference too! The monkeys for instance - If you thought you had seen all the species pf monkey then think again. Here we have waistcoat and fez donned monkeys alongside wind up monkeys alongside moneys with war-painted faces…where else would you find such an eclectic, and colourful, collection? You get the idea. You’ll be forgiven for scratching your head at times though when trying to work out what species you’re actually looking at; while many of the creatures or from obvious families, others are distinctly other-worldly. This doesn’t stop the fun though; if anything it adds to the book’s appeal.

If you’ve read any of my reviews before you’ll know how much I enjoy seeing familiar artists’ work as well as discovering new artists too. For this, The Pictoplasma Encyclopaedia is as good a tool as any I’ve seen before. Familiar and deserving artists include the amazingly talented Guy Mckinley with a set of new images that are some complex but so accessible (and cute) that I could look at and enjoy for ages. Anyone who has seen his art will know that it sits comfortable in the section dedicated to girls. Jeremy Dower gets included in the fruit and vegetable section! It’s also great to see Phil Corbett get some space for his Kitten Parasites that I mentioned back in 2005. My all time favourite artist, Jeff Soto hits a couple of pages too, as does an artist called Ronald Kurniawan, whose style isn’t that far removed from Soto’s. This isn’t a criticism of his work though. It’s different enough to still be interesting and he’s someone who I’ll definitely be looking to more in the future.

Other artists that I hadn’t noted till now include Boris Hoppek. I’ve seen his work many times on the internet but it didn’t really click till I saw the images included here. His monstrous cardboard box characters really are terrific. Christian Montenegro’s style appeals too, with its geometric patterns and ink-stamp colouring effects. There’s a page of his skeletal characters with different clothes (mod, rocker, punk etc.) that is particularly great. But the best of all comes from a completely new artist to me, Momorobo. Momorobo’s style is just so smooth and dynamic that it really hits the spot. Luckily for me (and hopefully for you), there are plenty of Momorobo images scattered about The Character Encyclopaedia. This kind of discovery makes it worth the price all by itself. Anyways, I could wax on about all the amazing artists and this incredible book till my ink ran out! I think you get the idea. It’s a cracking book and fit for a king…especially one who likes character design or simply loves nice books. Don’t you owe it to yourself to find out more about these species?! You can get The Character Encyclopaedia direct from Pictoplasma or from all the usual places including Amazon UK. What a beauty it is. Did I mention the book’s cover?!