eBoy are the champions of the pixel world. Theirs is the style which many have tried to immitate but no-one has managed to match – a mix of retro sub-culture and classic videogames which appeals to a much wider audience than most people would have ever expected. Their client list includes Coca-Cola, Levi’s, Adidas, Nike, MTV, Honda, Wired, Computer Arts, Creative Review and many more. We hunted them down to get a bit of an insight into what makes eBoy tick…

Hello and welcome to the world of Thunder Chunky. How are you doing today?

Sun is shining, everyone’s happy.

For the small number of our readers who don’t know anything about eBoy, how would you describe yourselves and the eBoy style?

We’re a small band of four people based in three offices in Berlin and New York connected through textaudiovideo. In Berlin three of us do pixels, and Peter does vectors in NY.

Pixel-art reminds me a lot of stop-motion animation, in that the results look fantastic but the process of creating it can be very long and tedious. Do you think you’ll ever snap and refuse to do it anymore? If you did, what do you think you’d do instead?

We’ll most probably stick with it since it gets faster with every new piece of work we produce. We have a constantly growing database which makes huge projects easier to handle.

There are lots of things we don’t have enough time for: 3D, music, animation, programming, carving, etc.

What would be your advice to somebody who was about to embark on their first piece of pixel art?

It’s the content that matters.

You’ve recently done an illustration of London. What are the best and worst things to draw in London?

Wheeh!…. we only draw stuff we like. I can’t really think of anything we would not like to draw. Sometimes things get tedious if for any reason we have to be as realistic as possible.

Now you’ve got such a strong reputation you must be in a pretty strong position regarding what clients you take on. What do you look for in prospective jobs?

Fun, money & girls!

There’s a lot of nudity ‘hidden’ within your cityscapes. What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever managed to get away with in your work? Have you ever had any trouble from censors etc.. ?

Well we really don’t try to hide it. It just is there and most people are ok with it. American clients are more sensitive about nudity, others specifically ask for it. We had one client at the beginning that just removed some scenes he found offending — it seemed to be a case of self-censorship. Anyway … we’re not really obsessed about nudity … we’re just not scared by it.

You’ve also ventured into the realm of CD sleeve design. If you could re-design the sleeve of any album what would it be?

“Warm Leatheret” by Normal or something for the late Beatles probably.

If there was ever an eBoy soundtrack, what bands would feature on it?

DaftPunk? Queens of the Stone Age? Mr. Oizo? Peaches? Kraftwerk? Dinosaur_Jr.? Suicide? Kyuss? Jackie Mitoo? Creedence Clearwater Revival? Helmet? Etc… etc… etc…

What’s going to be great for you in 2005?

Toys & games.

Finally, what’s the one thing everybody should do today?

Get kids!

Visit the pixel world of eBoy by going to www.eboy.com.