Creativity and Innovation Day Takes a Whimsical Turn with Photoshop

This Sunday marks the second annual World Creativity and Innovation Day (we promise, we’re not making this holiday up)! To celebrate, three Photoshop artists got together to collaborate on something never seen before. Inspired by the surrealist exercise-turned-children’s game called Exquisite Corpse (also known as Heads, Bodies, & Legs), they created a mythical beast using Photoshop.

The task: Each of the three artists had to create one part of an imaginary animal.

The catch: None of them knew what the others would come up with!

The final result: Read on to find out…

The head

For the head, Luisa Azevedo harnessed her magical style to come up with this adorable Tree Deer. A self-taught, digital artist from Portugal, Luisa is most known for the dream-like photo manipulations she creates and posts on her Instagram account. Luisa has been fascinated and curious about art since she was a child, but only discovered her passion for digital art at the age of 15, when she first started using Photoshop. Currently, she is majoring in Multimedia Art at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon.

When she sat down to work on this design, all she knew was that she was going to be creating the head of a creature. With no other prompts, she set to work. Taking inspiration from flora and fauna (simply put, plants and animals) and evoking springtime vibes, Luisa says, “I wanted to create something that reflected my love for nature, as well as my own style, so I decided to give a new twist to an animal we all know.”

Her first step was this sketch, which, if you ask us, is pretty great on its own.

She then added in all her elements and blended them together.

And voila: the head was complete! But Luisa had no idea what the final creature would look like.

The body

The body of the creature was up to Julien Tabet. This 21-year-old French student got his start in digital art a little over a year ago, stumbling upon it totally by chance. He began learning to use Photoshop to improve his general skills, but ended up getting hooked! It soon became part of his daily life.

With a lifelong love of wildlife, creating images of animals comes naturally to Julien. But, he admits, “imagining only the body of an animal without seeing the head or legs was a real challenge.”

Julien usually draws inspiration from an animal’s physical characteristics and behavior. For this collaboration, he chose to base his work around meerkats, who he finds very amusing. “For me,” he shares, “this represents a little bit of the madness of the animal kingdom.”

Since meerkats live in groups, Julien says, “I wanted to imagine a kind of temple for this animal and their community.”

Drawing from meerkats’ quirkiness, Julien then added a bit of musicality to his animal.

Finally, he ended up with this surreal and clever design. How this would fit in with the rest of the creature, he had no idea.

The legs

Andy Häggkvist was tasked with creating the legs of this creature. Growing up in a small town in northern Sweden, Andy was surrounded by rich forests and wildlife. Now, Andy draws much of his creative inspiration from his countryside beginnings. He dedicates his life to his passion for creating animal art with a message – or, ”art with heart” as he likes to call it. Andy shares, “Using the power that art contains, combined with the power of social media, I think there is an opportunity for me as an artist to make a movement for this important cause.”

In brainstorming his creature’s legs, Andy says, “My goal was to create something inspired by elements our dazzling world has to offer. I wanted to make an artistic visualization of how nature is connected – a circular flow of animals, plants, flowers, trees, sky, and ground, all in beautiful balance and harmony.”

Jumping in feet first, Andy found the basic elements he wanted to use for his design.

He then gave his creature some scenery and added a bit of magic.

Adding in his finishing touches, Andy ended up with the legs of a fantastical creature.

Putting them all together

At the onset of this collaboration, none of the three artists imagined this creature would turn out the way it did. All they had to work with was their own imagination and creativity. Out of three entirely distinct styles, one surprisingly cohesive creature emerged.

This creature needs a name! Help us figure out what to call this new animal by commenting with your suggestions.

We’re glad you could join us to celebrate World Creativity and Innovation Day. If this collaboration from Luisa, Julien, and Andy stirred a bit of creativity and innovation within you, share your own work with us – we’d love to see it! For more from these artists, check out their social channels below:

Luisa Azevedo | Instagram

Julien Tabet | Instagram

Andy Häggkvist | Instagram