art director and Inside Job character designer Chris MacDonald

Browsing Fan Expo Toronto’s Artist Alley is my favourite part of the con every year, and Chris McDonald is the artist behind one of its most striking booths. His posters, largely focused on homages to TV and movies, are instantly recognizable for their incredible details and style. Chris has worked on a variety of high-profile series and projects, including credits on Inside Job and Mermicorno: Starfall.  I had the pleasure of sitting down with Chris to talk about his impressive body of work, both personal and within the industry.

First of all, I wanna know about your creative process. Walk me through your routine. 

When it comes to Fan Expo or any con that I’ve done, I obviously love doing fan art and fan posters. I’m a big fan of sci-fi and horror. My inspiration is more old school work where there’s been a lot of blood, sweat, and tears put into it. I’m a big fan of Drew Struzan, for example, and then more modern artists like Ollie Moss; big heavy graphic shapes. They catch your eyes; simple colours. That’s consistent throughout my work. 

I’m always thinking about that in the process. I’ll usually just start with thumbnails and then look at scale and composition within those. Where I lean into the Ollie Moss-ness of it, where he inspires me, is that I love putting in little Easter eggs. I find that when people buy my work, if I point out little things or if they catch them on their own, it scratches that itch that a lot of modern posters don’t do…where they’re just photoshopped to shit. And it’s just focusing on the actors’ faces, it’s so boring and flat.

I like bringing moments to life; moments I liked in the film or even objects that were important to the story. I’ll concentrate on that. So I thumbnail, sketch it out, and bring in those details that I would like to see when I look for stuff to buy. Slowly, I narrow it all down to the composition. Then I start approaching it with the cleanup and style; do I want this tight and graphic and full digital, or do I wanna do it traditionally? Then, maybe, I’ll scan that and do simple colours on top. So there’s a surprising amount of variety in what you see with my work. 

How difficult is it to adapt to being brought onto an already ongoing project?

I’ve worked a lot as an art director, and in that role, in a way, you’re curating the style. You’re reinforcing that style either through working with other artists and going over their work to narrow it down so it’s all consistent, or I’m bringing my own flavour and having to teach them how to replicate that. So it’s super collaborative. We build those relationships. Everyone becomes stronger through it. And if not – if I come in, say, as a designer in season two of a show, I’m pretty malleable stylistically. I just naturally love so many different types of things. I mean, I bought this little Lulu the Piggy beach party vinyl figure because it’s adorable; It’s super kawaii! [Chris gestures to a very cute little pig figurine sitting at his booth, I believe it was one of these] I love that kind of stuff, even though I draw this morbid horror stuff. 

In my career, I’ve mostly worked in kids’ programming in terms of TV. Mermicorno: Starfall was my last big project that I art-directed, and that’s a Tokidoki Japanese brand. So I can do that stuff, and then I can draw a very graphic, illustrative poster. I just educate myself on what I’m looking at or who I’m working with; I just try and make sure we mesh really well. 

Is it a coincidence that two of your kids’ show projects (Big Blue and Mermicorno: Starfall) have been underwater?

To clarify [for readers], that doesn’t mean they got shitcanned or canceled or something – they’re literally underwater. 

Yes, literally underwater!

They got made. They’re out! I think it is a complete coincidence. Big Blue was a crazy project because the pandemic hit around the halfway point in production. So we got to experience that whole shift of the industry and the pipeline process. 

Sometimes, people will be like, I’m the goblin guy. All I draw is goblins, and I draw goblins really well. Or I’m the doll person, I draw really cute doll-type characters, and they will get consistently hired for that. The animation industry – they’ll look at stuff like that and be like, oh, you worked on an underwater show. You can handle this show. And it is true. But for the artist, you can get pigeonholed. I love variety. I love jumping around stylistically. I find it challenging, and I feel like I learn more and grow more as an artist.

So I think it did just come down to that. They’re like, oh, you art-directed this other animation that was underwater. We need a whole different style and approach for this other show, but you’re familiar with all this stuff you’ll need to know. Hopefully the next thing I work on is not underwater, because it’s a combined three years of working on animated shows underwater. I’m good for now. 

Based on what you have on display, you like to make a lot of art based on The Last of Us. Is there something in particular that draws you to making art based on that game? 

I’m a big gamer. I love a lot of different types of games the same way I love different types of animation or other media, but that was such a moment for me because it was a combination of all the things I love. It felt so cinematic; the storytelling and the characters were so great. It inspired me. If you look at my work, it’s all TV show or movie stuff that I love paying homage to. It’s the one standout because it’s a video game. I haven’t played many games that have done that since; I think that’s why I was drawn to that specifically. And the visuals, too; they’re my jam.

How much creative freedom do you usually have as an art director? Are you influencing the story directly? 

It can depend mostly on when I come into the process. Like we were talking about before, it’s pretty rare for an art director to come into something further down the line. A good distinction to make is if you’re working on a 3D project or something in gaming, for example, it becomes a lot more detail-oriented. I’ve had meetings where I’m just pointing at a screen with a laser pointer and being like, that needs to be 10% brighter, and that’s just micromanaging. With 2D, there’s so much style involved, and there could be so much you have to quality control on a practical level. With that kind of thing, you need to be there from the ground up. So with 2D, there’s way more creative freedom because of that. Because the shows – especially the ones I’ve worked on – can be so different stylistically, you’re gonna be given a lot of creative freedom. It’s pretty great. 

You have entire shows that will just be the art director’s work. A good example is the Love, Death, and Robots series. I love those because they’ll bring in someone like a Robert Valley and just be like, we’re gonna do the whole thing based on his style. We’re gonna make that look like his work. So, thankfully, when it’s 2D work, it’s more common. 3D, it starts getting a little bit more collaborative, and there are a lot of moving parts to it. 

Thanks so much for speaking with me, enjoy the rest of the con!

Thank you, you too!

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

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