Andrea Margutti eBoy is a pixel art group founded on May 2, 1997 by Kai Vermehr, Steffen Sauerteig and Svend Smital. eBoy (“Godfathers of Pixel“) is based in Berlin (Germany) and Vancouver (Canada). Their complex illustrations have been made into posters, shirts, souvenirs, and displayed in gallery exhibitions.
Kai grew up with Nintendo to inspire him, the rest of the eBoys lived in East Germany where video games did not exist. Their work makes intense use of popular culture and commercial icons, and their style is presented in three-dimensional isometric illustrations filled with robots, cars, guns and girls.
“If we don’t work on other projects at the same time it takes about six to eight weeks to finish a very detailed cityscape (“Pixoramas”), three eBoy’s working on it, nearly full time. But, if we have to do it in our spare time, which happens often, it could take years to finish a picture since we can’t spend so much time on it.” (source)
Following we had the opportunity to ask some questions to Kay Vermehr for a quick interview.
Kay, where do you get your inspiration?
Everywhere really. The beautiful and the ugly, the mundane and the extraordinary. A favorite are our own misinterpretations.
Which is the relationship and influence between your cultural background (country, studies, etc.) and your artworks?
I’m not entirely sure, but growing up in Latin America, West and East Germany, might have made us more open to a diversity of perspectives. But who knows.
What are you much focused in?
Modularity — we like efficiency because we’re lazy.
Have you encountered any difficulties when you first started your art/freelance career?
As young artists the biggest challenge was to find people we could connect with. We were really lucky to meet each other and form something like an art band.
Over these years, what is the most important thing you have learnt from your profession?
That you have to do things. Work always pays off. And finishing projects is good as well.
Do you think that a creative job is just creativity or it’s discipline too?
A creative job needs discipline for sure. Creativity itself does not.
Are you currently working on new projects?
We’re always working on new isometric parts for our database. Then there are many smaller projects and experiments that keep getting picked up and dropped again.
Check our db for a incomplete overview: db.eboy.com/
“As young artists the biggest challenge was to find people we could connect with.
We were really lucky to meet each other and form something like an art band“
“That you have to do things.
Work always pays off.
And finishing projects is good as well“
“We started working with pixels because we loved the idea of making pictures only for the screen. It’s the best way to get really sharp and clean looking results. Also, handling pixels is fun and you are forced to simplify and abstract things, which is a big advantage of this technique.”
Artist Website > hello.eboy.com
Shop > shop.eboy.com
Twitter > @eboyarts
Instagram > @eboyarts
Ello > ello.co/eboy
Facebook > www.facebook.com/eboypixels/
Patreon > www.patreon.com/eboyarts
