SML creates bizzare but cute world
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Round, colorful and armless figures wearing gray hooded sweatshirts line up at creative studio Sticky Monster Lab’s (SML) third exhibition “03 by Sticky Monster Lab” at Platform Place in Sinsa-dong, southern Seoul.
The five-member group is composed of art directors Fla and Boo, figure artists Inae and C+ and producer Nana and is difficult to define with only a few words. They make animated films, design characters and even figurines.
The team was formed in 2007 when freelance illustrator Fla and Boo joined up with Nana, then a planner for a digital film festival. Figure designers Inae and C+ came later, widening the studio’s horizons.
They have produced three short animated films — “The Runners” in 2007, “The Monsters” in 2008 and “The Father” in 2009.
Their characters are simple and colorful. The nine-minute animation “The Monsters” features a variety of characters.
“The main character does not have arms. We visualized a weakness everybody has — some do not have legs and the others have their body split,” art director Boo told The Korea Times in an interview last week. “However, the basic model is simple as we can add other features to the form easily.”
The face of the monsters comes from the silent film actor Buster Keaton. “He wears an expressionless face throughout his movies, but people all feel differently about the same poker face. We wanted to induce a similar effect with our characters,” Boo said.
SML creates a 2D character, makes it move around in the animation and then turns it into a tangible figure.
The third exhibition celebrates the team’s first figures release. Two series are currently on sale at the exhibition and online.
“It took us about two years to actually mass produce the figures from scratch. ‘The Monsters’ series is from the characters that appeared on our animation with the same name. These are limited collections of 1,000 each,” Nana said.
The SML series is the beginning of Korean style collectible platform toys. “The same-shaped figures will be produced again later, but the SML series will not be reproduced,” she added.
SML is also gaining popularity abroad. Their short “The Father” has been screened at the Future Film Festival in Bologna, Italy; Pictoplasma in Berlin, Germany; and Onedot Zero in London, United Kingdom.
“We receive emails or comments from overseas viewers who saw a clip on YouTube or Vimeo,” Nana said. “We will sell the new figures internationally soon.”
The creative studio aims to collaborate with other artists, companies and people from different fields. “For example, we can work with scientists to go beyond our boundaries,” Boo said.
“We don’t want to do only what we can do. We want to work together with people who do things we cannot do,” said Nana.
The exhibition is open through Sunday. Visit www.stickymonsterlab.com for more information.