In the world of illustration art, few have been as successful as Anton Gudim from Moscow, Russia. His illustrations frequently end up as memes, they’re constantly shared, and from time to time, they go viral in one way or another. Naturally, a question of why they’re so popular would come up. There’s many reasons. For starters, his illustrations have a strange mix of humor that’s very unique to the artist: the illustrations have a lit bit of irony, sarcasm, eeriness, randomness, and witty commentary on modern society. Another thing is that their style is very easy to recognize, and if you’ve seen them, you can easily tell them apart from other artists’ works.
We love Anton’s illustrations. So much so that it’s the sixth part of his ongoing comic series here on Bored Panda. In case you want to see what you missed, you may find them here (I, II, III, IV, V, VI).
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More info: Instagram | patreon.com
#1
Image credits: gudim_public
By taking a brief look, you’ll notice that there’s little to no dialog. The artist explained this in an interview of his previous post. “It’s just the format that I came to and which I consciously chose. Why? Firstly, any reasonable restrictions contribute to the development of creativity. Secondly, I like it from an aesthetic point of view. Thirdly, I do not need to translate text for my international audience. Fourthly, captions usually come to the fore and drawings become just an addition to dialogues and text descriptions, and I always prefer the visual side. At the end of the day, you can just tell the dialogue from the comic and that will be enough. In my case, you need to look, no description can replace what I draw.”
#2
Image credits: gudim_public
#3
Image credits: gudim_public
There’s also a peculiar sense of humor in these illustrations, one that some describe as dark, sarcastic, or ironic. “Dark humor and sarcasm are just some of the ways I am conveying information to the audience. I don’t think that everything should be looked at through the prism of sarcasm, and all humor should be dark. Some situations in life, of course, are easier to deal with with armor in the form of sarcasm, but some situations can be taken face to face and presented in a more unexpected way.”
#4
Image credits: gudim_public
#5
Image credits: gudim_public
Anton also went in depth about the evolution of the comedic aspect of his illustrations. “At first, I just told jokes (these were almost classic comics with dialogue), puns. Then the jokes became more absurd and dialogue almost disappeared from the comics. I liked to draw comics about objects, without characters in the frame. Over time, humor began disappearing from some works but did not disappear altogether. It seems strange that some artists do not use humor in their works, because a layer of humor is a large layer of creativity. Life is not only serious and dark, but also funny at times, but often it is a tragicomedy. In the end, I began to focus on playing on the unexpected properties of things and events. Now it was interesting for me to try to go to genres adjacent to just digital drawings: such as video, sculpture, or street art.”
#6
Image credits: gudim_public
#7
Image credits: gudim_public
Listen beautiful relax classics on our Youtube channel.
When considering where Anton Gudim stands as an illustrator, one needs to take his popularity into consideration. Though Anton shies away from being called popular, he is exactly that, and a million followers on Instagram is a testament to that. “Of course, 7 years ago, when I’d just started drawing under the Gudim brand, I could not have imagined such a thing. After a while, seeing how my work was developing, I could assume that one day the figure of 1 million would be surpassed. It took a long time to reach it, it was not an explosion of popularity, so it seems to be quite normal, considering how much effort was invested in the creation of each work. But even with that number, I absolutely don’t feel popular. I remember the day this number appeared on the screen of the Instagram application, and it was not the day when I felt famous, it was the day of accepting that my work was appreciated and I need to move on. Thanks to my subscribers, I am very grateful that I have them.”
#8
Image credits: gudim_public
#9
Image credits: gudim_public
No matter the originality and the creativity, all artists are inspired by something. Anton is no different in this regard, and he gladly shared what influenced him. “Someone constantly influences me and I always discover new artists. At this stage, it is more interesting for me to discover new artists outside the comics world, although many people who draw comics (such as Perry Bible Fellowship, Poorly Drawn Lines, False Knees, Jeroom, and others) still inspire me. I like artists (Rustam QBic, Slava Ptrk, Seth Globepainter, Jason Limon, and others), I like video content creators (Pablo Rochat, Romain Laurent, Oliver Latta, Scorpion Dagger, Kevin Lustgarten, and others), I recently discovered an interesting Russian cartoonist Andrei Popov. There are a lot of talented people around!”
#10
Image credits: gudim_public
#11
Image credits: gudim_public
Even though Anton is really good at what he does, the illustrator has his own gripes about the process. “The most difficult thing, of course, is to come up with what to draw about. Moreover, the flow of ideas can be quite strong (I take notes with ideas every day), but the most difficult thing is to separate a good idea from a bad one, see the potential in one and understand that, for example, another idea will not work.” Of course, there are things that are more easy to him too. “The simplest thing is to draw (after you have chosen an idea, decomposed it into frames, and come up with a composition). Here you need to clarify that good and neat way to draw what you came up with. Choosing a color palette is also not easy, but still, for me, this is an easier stage than coming up with and selecting ideas.”
#12
Image credits: gudim_public
#13
Image credits: gudim_public
#14
Image credits: gudim_public
#15
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#16
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#17
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#18
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#19
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#20
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#21
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#22
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#23
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#24
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#25
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#26
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#27
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#28
Image credits: gudim_public
#29
Image credits: gudim_public
#30
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#31
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#32
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#33
Image credits: gudim_public
Source: boredpanda.com