Hi I'm Max and I'm an illustrator and aspiring animator from the UK! I focus a lot of my work on playful imagery that holds a somewhat nostalgic value. I enjoy exploring childhood memories of food and culture that I experienced when growing up, and I always aim to include a little bit of my childhood in each piece that I do. I use both digital and traditional mediums, but especially with traditional I can create this purposefully playful and loose feel through wax crayons and colour pencils, which I feel creates a more personal atmosphere for me!

Instagram: @ugly.rice

Where would you like your work to take you?

In a perfect world, being a freelance illustrator/artist would be amazing! I'd love to have a gallery feature my work one day, and have clients that are interested in my work for what it is! Also I hope to be able to animate a music video or create an album cover from scratch one day!

Which part of your creative process do you enjoy most?

I definitely enjoy the brainstorming of ideas the most. The initial sketches are always so fun as the final product is never the same as what it was at the start, and it's interesting to see that process of 'oh that's where I decided to just randomly include this', or to just switch up the look completely! That, or the very final stages where you start to see everything come together.

Where do you draw inspiration from?

I take a lot of inspiration from my random thought processes throughout the day, or stuff I watch and see generally. I love going through design magazines, I've been loving those recently. Also animations such as Satoshi Kon's work is super inspiring, and Tove Jansson's Moomins is always super nostalgic and creative, it just makes me really happy to see other people's creations and the worlds inside their heads!

What piece of music would you say compliments your work the most?

My work is fairly 'still' looking, and even the animation I do is pretty peaceful and not that frantic, so I'd like to say something quite chill and steady. I'm animating a music video for fun to a Sunny Day Service song at the moment, so maybe that type of vibe.

Can you list a couple other creatives/friends/people you look to for inspiration?

Yeah there's so many talented people on Instagram that I love! Raman Djafari is amazing, Mogu Takahashi, Jennifer Nie, @Peppapeng__, @t_ipy, my twin @lenkadellaporta is super talented as well! That's just a fraction of them, there's so much talent on my feed all the time.