Luis Gadea has always had an innate interest in what he calls “moments in life.”
Born in Canada and raised in Costa Rica, Gadea says that, as a kid, he’d watch how his extended family interacted at loud get-togethers, analyzing their body language or the way they moved. These real-life moments of observation led to more creative pursuits.
He’d use paper to imagine playful fictional worlds and characters, like Martians who were members of a rock band, or riffs on historical stories, like someone meeting the 16th-century pirate Redbeard. His parents enrolled him in drawing classes where he learned artistry like manga and caricature.
In Costa Rica, the culture helped Gadea push beyond traditional textures, colors, and shapes. “It’s a very colorful country,” he says. “Even with skin tone and body shape, that was something very early on that I started pushing to get away from the ‘normal’ way of drawing [peoples’ bodies].”
Gadea would eventually study classical animation at Vancouver Film School. He stayed in the city after graduation to work as a teaching assistant at the university and in 2D animation for Atomic Cartoons, where his credits included Rocket Monkeys and Avengers Assemble. In 2014 he shifted into character design, doing studio jobs before freelancing for DreamWorks, Illumination, and Netflix. He continued this path when he returned to Costa Rica in 2020. Then Warner Bros. Animation, for whom he worked on the TV series Bugs Bunny Builders, hired him full time and relocated him to Los Angeles.
Now in the City of Angels, Gadea still likes to look at how people express themselves, and he says his people-watching has gravitated toward street fashion. His website and Instagram are full of illustrations that reflect the individuality of all skin tones and body shapes walking and moving in colorful clothing combinations.
Gadea laughs at the irony in this because his professional career has largely gravitated toward projects about animals, not people. In addition to Bugs Bunny Builders, his credits include The Angry Birds Movie and the upcoming Garfield film. He says he takes a similar approach to animals as he does to humans, though, since “even animals have personalities,” and you can infuse animated animals with human characteristics.
With Angry Birds, for example, this meant playing with the shapes and sizes of the characters’ beaks. And when he is updating a classic animation, such as Chuck Jones and others’ work for Looney Tunes, he says he simplifies some shapes and makes them less complicated so he can create more complicated designs with the clothing.
“If you ask every single artist, they’re trying to look for a style [of drawing], and that thing haunts us every single day,” he says. “For me, I’ve got to question how I accomplish a drawing.” This is because he doesn’t like to find himself in the comfort zone of a repetitive style.
A need to challenge himself also extends to the tools Gadea prefers. He will switch between markers and ink if he finds he’s becoming reliant on one of them. A texture enthusiast, he likes the way paints can dampen thinner paper “because then the paper has wrinkles.” And he prefers what he calls “preschool art supplies” like crayons and watercolors because they’re not exact. When a tool is messy, “then it’s not controlling you and you somehow control it,” he says.
It’s not surprising that Gadea prefers hand drawing to computer screens. “I completely feel more comfortable with pencil and paper,” he says, even if this means he might be a bit slower because he has to erase or redraw his work. This effort to pace himself helps Gadea curb a mentality to hurry up and get it done now.
Of the art he does on his off hours, he says: “If you asked me a few years ago, I would be that artist with a sketchbook all the time with me. These days … I’m doing my own investigation mentally of analyzing things, and I’m not stopping every single place to then draw.” This trains his brain to “create a mental library” and helps with creative burnout.
“I cannot expect to be 365 days a year, super creative,” Gadea says. He and his wife Maria del Mar like to take road trips with their dogs Paco and Lola. He uses that time to “take my mind out of [my art] and be present.”
During these breaks, he’s still fascinated by human interaction and if he sees a moment between people he mentally captures it to draw it eventually. He just doesn’t need to do it immediately. His method is to take breaks and get more inspiration. “It helps me with my personal art, which I believe at the end will benefit my professional life,” he says. “Everything is connected.”
Discover more of Gadea’s illustrations at www.luisgadea.com.
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