Nope, they were commissioned by the federal government as part of a campaign in partnership with Woolworths.The article is a bit misleading since it seems to be just the supermarket chain making a sticker collection?
"Fans of thing ruined thing" is still the most sophomoric reaction to media, especially something as ubiquitous as anthropomorphic cartoon characters.
The collectible "fursona" sticker series was actually commissioned by the government and created by Landeg — a 2D artist usually focused on comics — who is based in South Australia.
Bushfires, we've been too quick to judge you…
But more seriously, I assume the request for anime-style art was in order to relate the campaign to japanese pop culture. So using furry-style art, which is more associated with the west (though inspired by anime at least), reflects poorly on the artist as they put their own desires before the purpose of their assignment. Noone is going to look at the characters and associate them with Japan, though luckily for the artist their bosses can't tell that. But some people may prefer it this way, anyways.
"I had no anthropomorphic art in my portfolio, so it was a bit of a surprise when it came out what they were asking for," Landeg told Junkee. "I had been assuming they were looking for someone to draw humans since that's all I drew!"
"On some level RAM were aware that anthro characters were 'a thing' since there were some anthro pieces in the references they sent me, but I don't think they had any idea that there was this sort of community/subculture surrounding it," they continued.
"To be clear, they knew exactly what they wanted — we worked together to make sure they got what they envisioned, I tailored what I made to their examples/feedback — they just didn't know there was a word for it, basically, or that it was SO popular."
"I knew immediately what kind of market there was for a campaign like this, though, because I've been on the Internet for longer than fifteen minutes."
My bad, then. I'm guessing they were prioritizing appeal to children. Nevertheless, disappointing that a project requesting an artist who can do anime-style ended up tying more to the west than Japan on the latters once-in-a-century olympic opportunity, especially considering Japan has lost most of the opportunity. The bosses probably weren't familiar with the associations of the different cartoons they found.
Iirc Lizzie the Paralympic lizard already existed since the Sydney 2000 games I think
I haven't been to Woolies in ages, I need to go to get these.Working at Woolies as we speak. I saw them yesterday, and had to wonder if it was an accident. Glorious that it wasn't.
Hahaha please do! :Dhehe
i've got a UK government illustration job in a week or so
i'll have to stick some easter eggs in there