Collateral Damage Studios began in 2007 in Singapore when a couple of art enthusiasts got together to start a group. Since then, time has passed by, people around the world discovered and followed their work, and that has even led to working with clients such as Anime Expo and Loot Anime. CDS will be heading to this year’s Anime Expo, and while that’s a ways away, I was able to chat with two of the artists, WaHa and Space Penguin, alongside CDS’ General Manager KC.
WaHa is one of the character designers on the team, while Space Penguin is one of the senior illustrators. Both talk about their general artist habits, what influenced their style, and advice for those who might want to do this for a living:
TheOASG: Tell me a bit about yourself and about life growing up in Singapore.
WaHa: I am just a regular 33-year-old guy who grew up in Singapore following the normal routine of school, while enjoying my hobbies of drawing and gaming. Eventually, I graduated from the National University of Singapore with a degree in Mathematics, and despite the conventional career paths that offered me, I have since been working as an artist full-time.
Space Penguin: Hi, I’m Space Penguin, an illustrator hailing from sunny island Singapore. I have always been a bit of a cloudcuckoolander, which is perhaps ill-suited to Singapore’s societal climate.
What caught your attention first: anime, manga, games, or novels?
WaHa: Anime caught my attention first as a kid, even though I wasn’t aware of the concept of Japanese anime then because Singapore public TV would regularly air dubbed anime together with western cartoons.
SP: My earliest memories consist of reading Dorling Kindersley encyclopedias, Horrible Histories books, and Nancy Drew novels in the library.
What was the event or moment that inspired you to become an artist? Did you think you’d be doing something else?
WaHa: I’ve always admired the ability to put one’s imagination onto paper, sharing them with the world. So I have enjoyed drawing as a hobby since my younger days. Otherwise I might have pursued astronomy. Maybe I would if my science grades had been better!
SP: There wasn’t any one event that inspired me. Actually, I wanted to become an astronaut or a veterinarian as a kid. But I get motion sickness even at 1-G and feel nauseous about examinations, so an artist seemed like a soothing alternative. I’m still hoping my stomach’s resilience to gore will come in handy in my career one day.
Describe a typical day for you, particularly if you’re working on art for a client, studio, etc.
WaHa: I find myself more focused at night so I usually wake up later in the day, head to the studio, figure out my workload for the day and start working on it. I take a break for dinner and head home to continue any other work I need to complete for the day.
SP: I wake up from my bunk bed fort at 10:00 am, get prepped enough to rejoin civilisation, read a book on the commute, have brunch at noon, do a side hustle or personal art project, start on my artwork from mid-afternoon till midnight, with a dinner break in between. I catch the last bus, return to my apartment, rinse (literally), and repeat.
What type of tools are you mostly using for your works?
WaHa: I use paint tool SAI primarily, but sometimes Clip Studio Paint as well.
SP: Wacom Intuos 4, Photoshop, Pencil, and the occasional caffeine.
Can you share what has influenced your style of drawing?
WaHa: Takehito Harada and Takeshi Obata are artists whom I am inspired by pretty early on. With regards to animation, I am very impressed by Kyoto Animation’s overall consistently high quality production values.
SP: Artists: James Jean, James Gurney, Claire Wendling, Alexandre Zedig.
Animation: Stuff by Studio 4°C, Masaaki Yuasa, Satoshi Kon.
Mangaka: Naoki Urasawa, Takehiko Inoue, Inio Asano, Junji Ito.
How would you say your work has evolved from 2007 to today?
WaHa: I hope that I’ve improved over the years, but having taken on various different projects at work has certainly increased my capacity to handle more styles of art today.
SP: I used to mostly draw floating heads of girls. I still do, but I mostly draw a variety of other things now.
What’s been an unexpected surprise as you’ve continued to grow as an artist?
WaHa: The most unexpected surprise was to have the opportunity to take on an animation project for an MNC tech client in 2013. It was a tough but interesting experience to create a short animation for a major company.
SP: That art is not a zero-sum game, where the contestant with the best artistry wins. It’s also still surprising that a regular sum of money appears in my bank account every month.
What’s been one of the biggest challenges you encountered while drawing?
WaHa: The biggest challenge working as an artist is to balance the quality of the artworks against the time that we were given to complete. Most of the time, it is hard to perfect any piece of artwork and still keep to our deadlines. So it is crucial to find the right focus on fine-tuning aspects of our art to deliver the best artwork we can produce within a limited time.
SP: Self-doubt. Every illustrator or designer has points in their careers when they are rushing out crap at 4:00am in the morning for a demanding client. You sip your third cup of coffee for the night, have existential arguments in your mind, and wonder if life would be simpler if you had become a projectionist. Then you remember that you are in the midst of the fourth Industrial Revolution, and robots will eventually replace you. You sigh a breath of relief.
You’ll be going to Anime Expo this year. What are your expectations for the 2018 trip compared to the 2017 trip?
WaHa: Rumors of me going to AX2017 were not true as this 2018 will be the first time I’ve been to the United States of America. I’m a little nervous but excited to experience one of the biggest anime conventions and meet great people there!
SP: I didn’t go to AX2017 either, but this year, I expect to be in Los Angeles rather than in Singapore.
KC: I was the one who went to AX2017 last year. It was an amazing experience since we don’t have conventions the scale of AX back home. My sales partner and I reached LA a couple of days before the convention, and we could already see the enthusiastic anime fans in the city. They were the groups in anime shirts, wearing the AX pass (even before the convention!) and as we walked past them, they were discussing anime with their friends.
This year, we decided that our artists should experience the convention for themselves. All the more so because they have been directly involved in the creation of artworks for AX. We hope to get an autograph session for WaHa at the industry corner, so he can autograph all those AX passes with his art.
What do you have planned for the rest of 2018, if you can share?
WaHa: I don’t have too much planned for the rest of 2018 as we are a little busy at work at the moment, but our studio will announce updates on social media when we’ve come up with our next projects!
SP: I’m hoping to find time to complete my personal projects, learn 3D art and rendering, get back to learning basic Thai, and go on an end-of-year trip to Bangkok. Like my gym membership, they will likely be forgotten until I am prompted for renewal.
KC: Participating in overseas conventions is a major part of our plan to promote ourselves in the overseas market. One week after AX, we will be sending another team of artists to SMASH in Sydney. Subsequently, we also hope to attend other conventions around USA in the near future. I’ve heard good things about Fanime.
We want to publish a couple of new art collections on our end. Space Penguin is working on a personal project and we hope to encourage our artists to come up with more original works.
And finally, of course, we’ll be working on new projects for our clients. We’ll be looking forward to the day we can unveil all the work we’ve done behind the scenes!
Finally, what’s one thing that you believe someone who wants to take up art as a career should know before they get into it?
WaHa: To be financially stable as an artist, it is not always the case that you get to draw what you like, especially in the beginning. If you are just starting as an independent artist, do consider what kind of commissions you can or want to take, and how much time it will take you to complete before making the leap full-time.
SP: Landing your first job is merely the first step. Think of your art career as a long flight up — the climb would be difficult if you expend yourself at the beginning. So make friends, and have fun while you are at it.