Rajiv Eipe, interviewed by Shalini Srinivasan

General

S: What are the different media you work in? And has this changed over the years?

R: I like working with paper and pencils, crayons, ink, charcoal. In my experience, working digitally saves a lot of time and can be a bit more forgiving of errors and things. Since I’m very often late on projects, I usually end up making exploratory sketches, rough thumbnails and final pencils on paper, and then adding colour on a computer. If I’m honest, I don’t think I’ve explored too many different media and illustration styles over the years, but it’s something I’d like to do more of in future.

S: Who are some of the major influences in your work?

R: It’s hard to answer this very concisely and specifically, inspiration comes from so many places. Growing up, I fell in love with the detailed illustrations and paintings of Norman Rockwell — we had a large book of his work at home. Around the time I went to art school, I remember being inspired by the work of Toulouse Lautrec, Schiele, Degas, Matisse, and trying to draw like them. Herge’s Tintin and Goscinny and Uderzo’s Asterix have been influences right from childhood, and more recently, the comic work of Guy Deslisle and Gipi.

From the world of children’s books, we had a few of the Mr. Men series by Roger Hargreaves when I was a boy, and I loved the characters. There were the cartoons and comics of Ajit Ninan and Jayanto in Target magazine. I love the books of Emily Hughes and Carson Ellis. And among my contemporaries, I admire and am inspired by the work of Aindri C, Priya Kuriyan, Prabha Mallya, Manasi Parikh, Rohan Chakravarty and Archana Sreenivasan, to name a few. I think there’s been a bit of an explosion of amazingly talented illustrators in India in the recent past, and I find inspiration flying at me almost everywhere I look.

Books

S: What medium did you make Hush in? And the cover? Could you talk a little bit about why and how these were chosen?

R: I think I used a combination of black ink drawn with a crow quill nib and a brush wash for texture and shading. The flashback sequences in the book needed to look noticeably different for the story to make sense, and so after some experiments and deliberation, we decided to use panels of pencil drawings against a black background. The cover was also a combination of ink and wash, with some digital tweaking. I believe we chose black and white ink drawings and wash to reflect the grim story. I should mention that a lot of the credit for the visualisation, pacing and design of the book goes to Pratheek Thomas, the writer. He had a very clear idea of the book in his head, and all I had to do was fill in the gaps with drawings.

S: What medium did you make Ammachi’s Amazing Machines in? Could you talk a little bit about why and how this was chosen? This was also (I think?) the first book you wrote for. How was it different to illustrate and write together?

R: Ammachi’s Amazing Machines was drawn with pencil on paper and coloured on a computer. Drawing on paper is the most natural and comfortable way for me to put thoughts and ideas down, and in my experience preserves a little of the imperfection and charm of using real materials. Though many art softwares recreate brushes and other media amazingly well, I personally find it a bit hard to achieve a comfortable balance when I’m drawing.

It was nice to write and illustrate together. Whereas you’d otherwise get a finished manuscript and then start imagining the pictures, this allows you to go back and forth between writing and drawing during the ideation process. The brief for the book was to introduce a science concept, in this case simple machines, to the reader in a fun way. I don’t feel very confident at all as a writer, and so it helped that I could draw out some ideas on paper and see if they worked for the story and the brief. After many many attempts and with lots of help and guidance from the editor and art director Vinayak Varma, the final book just sort of fell into place.

S: What medium did you make Anand in? Could you talk a little bit about why and how this was chosen? Is Anand based on a real person?

R: Anand was also drawn on paper and coloured digitally. In terms of style, I wanted to try and put the main character and his interactions with the people he meets squarely in the spotlight. The loud colours and patterns for the characters and limited palette and detail for the background was an attempt towards this. Anand is loosely based on the very lively person who drives the municipality waste collection auto in our neighbourhood — if not his physical characteristics, his zest, cheerful confidence and love for loud music.

Shalini Srinivasan, by email, 8th June, 2021

Published on April 25, 2022.