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We were eager to find out more about how they work as a collaborative pair and how they’re pushing Brosmind as an all-inclusive brand.

Having studied art separately, did you actively try and develop a cohesive style or has your work always been similar to one another?

We have been a creative couple since our childhood. When we were kids, we spent all day making comics, building vehicles for our action figures and creating our own movies with a domestic camcorder. 

Juan is only three years older than me (Alejandro) so we have the same background and influences, we think in the same way and share the same kind of ideas. Having said that, it’s true that there were some slight differences between our drawing styles, but when we started our studio we naturally developed the actual Brosmind style.

How does your process as a duo differ from how you’ve worked previously?

Now is easier for us. We can quickly explain an idea to each other and be sure that he is going to understand it perfectly. The cool thing about being brothers is that we can be totally sincere in our criticism or have really big arguments and still be friends. That helps, for sure, to take our work to a higher level than before.

Is all the work produced as Brosmind totally collaborative or do you sometimes allocate individual parts of a project to one another?

We develop all the ideas in common and also develop the pencilled drawing together. When we decide that the pencil stage is finished, Juan does the ink and Alejandro adds the color on the computer.

As well as your work, you get a lot of positive attention as yourselves as artists. Is this something you’ve always thought would be part of the branding of Brosmind, or is it something that’s happened naturally because of people’s interest in you?

We would love being only artists, but for the moment  it’s easier to live from commercial work. For the moment, we’ve just reached a balance between commercial and personal work that makes us feel really comfortable.

Would you recommend working as a team to other artists out there?

Each person is different. For us, it’s great to work together, but our relationship is so special that it would be really difficult to have anybody else in the studio. We also know really talented artists who work alone and also other studios, which create amazing things being a big team.

Continuing from your venture into other products, such as Brosmind Army and Brosmind City, can we expect to see any further expansion of the Brosmind universe in the near future?

Of course. We have two great projects!

We got invited to do the Main titles for the OFFF Festival in Barcelona 2012. And we’ll be working together with Upper First, and that’s going to be big! We are really excite about this project : ) 

We”ll be presenting them on May 2012, so stay tuned!

And, probably on the same dates, we’ll launch an amazing personal project, but unfortunately for the moment we can’t say WHAT’S INSIDE?, so stay tuned!

© Brosmind Studio, 2011.

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“I created nearly all the artwork you see in the game (with the exception of the graphic design and death cards elements). It was a lot of work, but it was the best kind of work and it’s so exciting to see it all brought together and to be able to play it now. Working with the Preloaded crew is one of the best experiences of my career so far, so much work went into making this and they’ve done an amazing job in my opinion.”

“My line-based work is all hand drawn and inked on paper. To ink, I currently use a Pentel brush pen. It’s an extremely convenient tool, as good as most decent brushes with all the convenience of a pen and you don’t really have to look after it too much. You can get a massive variety of line qualities with it and I find it fun to use.

Although sometimes, if you’re like me and hold your pens ridiculously close to the nib, you will end up with ink all over your fingers and there’ve been a few occasions where I’ve unwittingly smeared grubby finger prints on a picture after spending a long time meticulously inking it.”

“I scan my lines, refine and colour them digitally in Photoshop which is the only program I use. I use an A6 Wacom Bamboo for colouring and occasionally redrawing bits of the line work that I messed up in the original.”

“For my flatter, more shape-based stuff, I work solely in Photoshop. I’ll often sketch and compose the image in thumbnail form on paper as I find it a million times easier to see what’s wrong with something and work out the basics in a small drawing on a real piece of paper. I’ll then scan that, knock the opacity way down so I can just see it as a guideline and then work digitally on top of it. I used to use the polygon lasso a lot to create block shapes, but I prefer now to manually draw out shapes with a slightly wobbly-round-the-edges brush I made and carve away at them until they’re what I want.

Even if I’m making straightforward shapes, this lends a hand drawn slightly ‘off’ quality that distracts from its digital nature. I’ll often erase chunks from a block of colour and scribble on top of them with the same brush, until there are only tiny specks of the background showing through, which again distracts from the digital truth and suggests something that’s printed.”

© Luke Pearson, 2011.

The categories on her site alone, which include ‘light boxes’, ‘body paint’, ‘xxx’ and ‘kamasutra’, illustrate versatility and willingness to try new things. Check out her trippy video, ‘Cream Guru’.

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“I work with a variety of materials depending on the project. For my pieces on paper or wood I use gouache, pencil, and ink. Sometimes acrylic. I’ve been making sculptures out of expanding foam recently and am releasing a video later this week that uses digitally shot live-action stop motion that I animated over frame by frame using Photoshop and AfterEffects. After finishing the digital version of the video I recorded and added text with VHS. I’ll be posting both versions on my website.”

“For Cream Guru I animated my drawings and paintings then mixed them in with live video and stop motion. I got the idea from reading ‘The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep’ by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. There are 12 spiritual practices the Tibetan Buddhists use when lucid dreaming and I included some of their techniques into the content of my video.”  

© Celeste Byers, 2011.

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There’s a sense of continuous, almost erratic movement in her illustrations, which could easily be seen as an animation or projection in a club. As she mentions here, it’s the ‘lo-fi’ element to her work that I think works so well. The intentionally unrefined way in which she draws is honest and much more emotional in that way.

“I am an illustrator and artist based in Geneva, Switzerland, working on commissions and personal projects. Lately, I have been concentrating mostly on live music visuals for clubs, festivals and audio visual performances. My VJ sets are animated frame by frame on my graphic tablet.

They are kind of like mashed-up cartoons, which I edit live to the music of the DJ or the musicians. I am interested in evoking narratives through the encounter of music and moving image and the storyline shines through as the night goes on. My illustrations are most of the time based on whimsical characters, their quests and passions.

Making things look good lo-fi, adding detail and throwing things away, I like to experiment with storytelling for all kinds of situations. I am available for commissioned projects, for editorial projects, fashion, music, VJing, shop windows and other illustration jobs. “

© Sarah Haug, 2011.

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For a student film, this short animation by French animator Clément Gendron is nothing short of spectacular. The traditional style is beautiful, but his timing is what stands out for me.