Julia Farkas's comical animations are full of strange and silly characters

Since graduating from the animation department at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest, Julia Farkas has built herself a portfolio full of hilarious work. Through intriguing, alien-like characters, which make up the majority of her illustrations and animations, Julia communicates her own brand of humour. Though having become the focal point of her practice, these weird and wonderful creations have been a part of Julia’s life since she was a child.

“I remember when I was six I drew a Mickey Mouse and my mum told me that I could do better than that,” she reminisces. “So I started to develop my own characters from that very moment.” Eventually coupled with her experience as an animator, these creatures have found a life of their own; given movement and mannerisms and transmorphic abilities, they have become beautifully simple GIFs full of personality.

“I can work on a GIF for days without stopping,” says Julia of her creative process. “I’ll start by sketching on paper, avoiding anything too cartoonish because I want to maintain my own unique style, and then develop the idea digitally before finalising it in TVPaint, which is a great French 2D animation software.” The end result is strikingly coloured scenes which show characters melting, splitting, changing form and using their hair to take flight.

Listing the three centre points of her subject matter as animals, nature and humour, it’s no surprise then that Julia also lists the comical animated films of Taika Watiti, the strange yet captivating work of David Lynch, and the widely-cherished nature documentaries of David Attenborough as her main artistic influences. Taking this inspiration, Julia is currently working on a series about the origin of animals, the universe and the black hole. “Of course, there will be aliens too,” she adds.