filip hodas envisions pop culture skeletons in cartoon fossils series

illustrator, computer animator, visual effects artist and pop culture connoisseur filip hodas has become widely-known for his pop culture dystopias. first he pleased us with a dystopian landscape of corroded cartoon characters in a state of severe corrosion, followed by a series of cultural idols, taken again into a dystopian landscape, but this time with a new dimension of textures that adds to its realness. the prague-based designer strikes back again, this time with cartoon fossils, a digital art series that envisions the preserved remains of our pop icons as if they were fossils.

spongia bobæ
all images by filip hodas

‘I have always enjoyed creating skulls, so I decided to combine my skull passion with 3D and some of my favorite childhood cartoon characters,’ comments filip hodas on his bechance site. ‘initially, I wanted to make them stylized as dinosaur fossils set up in a museum environment, but later decided against it, as the skulls didn’t look very recognizable on their own — especially with parts broken or missing. that’s why I opted for less damaged look and also added some assets to each of the characters. to make it more cartoony I decided to contrast the realistic look of the skull with colorful flat backgrounds.’

spongia bobæ detail

for the cartoon fossil series, hodas wanted to improve his digital sculpting skills and to experiment with different software like Zbrush. the designer has taken famous cartoon characters like sponge bob, goofy and mini mouse among others and has given us a look at what our future could be. ‘for each skull I tried to adjust and improve the workflow which resulted in quite visible differences between the first (canis goofus) and last in the series (anas scroogius),’ he continues. ‘throughout the series I also tried to push the procedural capabilities in painter. all the textures are procedurally made in either substance painter or substance designer.’

canis goofus