I am first and foremost a visual artist, working with multiple disciplines: animation, comics, illustration, urban art, painting, experimental film etc. But right now I'm in the middle of a long stretch of working with something that's not very visual: scriptwriting for an animated series.
So in Korppoo I basically sit in front of a laptop, writing. Every now and then pausing to think, then writing again about the strange and colorful creatures on a fictional planet of my own making, Planet Z. You can see some glimpses of my universe here and of course in my Instagram.
One might wonder, why do I need to come to the beautiful Turku archipelago just to sit inside and think about my fictional creatures? That's a fair question! The answer is that my inspiration for those creatures comes from our own planet, from its endlessly wonderful nature. So every now and then I get up, I go out and wander around. I hike in the forest, I swim in the sea and the lake, I watch, I listen. I talk to birds and spiders, peek into puddles, gently touch a stone or a lichen.
And I take tons and tons of photos. Many of those pictures are of animals, plants, rocks, lichen, mushrooms... Many are close-ups of insects, leaves, pebbles, clams, bones, rock formations, feathers, water... Colors, shapes, textures, ideas... Stuff that feeds my brain as I build my fictional ecosystem.
Sometimes I also draw what I see - or what my mind sees. The drawing above was inspired by my day trip to Utö island. On the boat back, I spontaneously doodled these yellow fellows. I have already turned this image into a poster called "Utö" that will be used in a street art happening in Vantaa. But I think there's a fair chance that they will also pop up in the animated series sooner or later!