Name: Arturo Toledo
Sex: Male
Age: 32
Company: Microsoft/Milton Frank Studio
Profession: Architect, Designer, Product Manager
Country: Mexico-US
Website: twitter.com/arturot

• Tell us a little bit about your background
My name is Arturo Toledo and I live close to Seattle in the US. I am originally from Mexico but moved here
about 4 years ago. Seattle is a beautiful city with many lakes and green forests, mountains and curious
animals like rabbits, deers, racoons and also bears who live in the mountains. It is a pretty magical place
because it mixes the best of nature as well as the best of technology with companies like Microsoft,
Amazon, BOEING here in the area. I studied Architecture and designed a few houses and other spaces in
Mexico. Then I started doing more interactive design and that's when I created my first character called
Milton. In reality when I was a little kid I designed other characters like Fruit Family and Pancho but it was
Milton that really made me realize that character design is what I love. These days I try to draw as much
a possible and design characters on the weekends. I carry my sketchbook all over the place and have
also recently bought an amazing iPhone application called Colors that allows you to do digital painting
with your finger. I love it! In the future I want to focus 100% on character design and do some fashion
design too. I am currently creating my first children's book.

• l How did you get your start in Character Design? or When did you start drawing
I've always liked characters. When I was a kid one night I had a dream about a theme park with fruit
based characters, so when I woke up I created some characters: Fruit Family, like strawberry, mango,
banana, orange. When I was like 12 years old I was a very geeky kid who knew how to create computer
programs in QuickBasic :). I liked to create computer games because those brought characters to life.
Around 1990 I created another character named Pancho. Back in those days there were not many
drawing programs so I had to create these drawings pixel by pixel with BASIC code. No mouse. It was
a slow process.

10 years later, in 2000, I designed Milton, a cooking chef for an interactive game for McGraw Hill. The
character would help nutriologist learn how to prepare healthy and balanced meals. Milton, a french
cook would give you little phrases of encouragement.

I loved creating Milton and from then I started creating more characters. I did a lot of sketching.
I never really studied character design or illustration so I've always felt I need to develop more
technique.

I designed a new version of Milton which looked cuter and more refined. I also designed a girlfriend
for Milton named Makayla, a very cute girl that is very smart and likes to do extreme sports. I designed
a collection of t-shirts for little girls and created a site www.miltonfrank.tv although the majority of t-shirts
I sold ended up with 18-25 year old girls! that's when I discovered girls of all ages (even 99 year old girls)
love cute characters! From here on I started using the commercial name of Milton Frank Studio to register
and copyright my characters (which is a good advice for any character designer!) ^_^

I then moved to Seattle I started attending weekend figure drawing sessions at the Art Not Gallery in Seattle.
That helped me improve the understanding for human figure. I also bought the entire video collection from
Glenn Vilppu, an amazing drawing teacher who uses renaissance masters (Leonardo, Michaelangelo)
techniques. His organic and fluid approach dramatically improved my ability to understand organic
shapes and helped me be more confident when sketching.

I used Expresion Design to create some characters like Cute As A Button which is a group of very fancy girls
who love their hair and love to go shopping and buy cute accessories. My style had been kind of flat for
a while and I liked it but I wanted to explore more textures so drew a Little Angel who lives here in the
Cascade mountains close to Seattle. He feeds with little chunks of snow. This character helped me explore
more textures. Then came my all time faves, the Saknar Dig ("I Miss You" in Swedish) characters which
I originally sketched out during a conference while visiting Bangkok in Thailand in 2008.

• l Who are your main inspirations / What are your influences
I've had different sources of inspiration throughout the years... here are a few.

80's - Mario Bros., Mazinger Z, Robotech (Macross), Candy, Gi Gi > Notice that all these were japanese
influences. Mexican kids in the 80's grew with tremendous influence from Japan. That is why now as
an adult I love Japan and I am currently studying japanese. I hope I can live in Japan one day or at least
spend a good amount of time there.

90's - Thundercats, Terminator, ID4, The Simpsons - More aggresive influence. Mostly American sources.

00's - Air Anime Series, Nyoron Churuya-san, Melancholy of Haruhi-chan, AIR, Pictoplasma Books,
Japanese Culture in general > Back to Japanese influence and cute style.

• Could you talk about your process “how do you create a character from start to end
I do little sketches on paper. They just come out spontaneously. I then select the best sketches and I scan
them. Even though they are just sketches they are already characters with individual personalities.
I import the scanned images into Expression Design and start tracing vector shapes over them. I usually
use a bright color like red or green for easier visibility. I then start applying vector brushes and strokes and
play with the line width. Then I start applying base colors. These are flat colors that will define the overall
tones for the character. Now comes the shading. I apply shading and highlights which makes the
character start showing more volume. At this point I usually feel like hugging the character. Now comes the
textures. Perhaps some freckles or fuzzy feel here and there. Sometimes I apply these textures in Photoshop,
specially for the fuzzy or hair like textures. And that is it! ready appeal other people :)
Here is a tutorial with my process if you want more information.

• What software do you use/ Which Wacom tablet
I use Microsoft Expression Design for my characters because it's easy to use, has expressive brushes and
has a great color selection mechanism. I prefer vector based illustration. I use a bit of Photoshop for
textures at the end of the process.

• Which of your characters is your favorite
I think my Saknar Dig series characters are the ones I love the most so far. I like the little green fairy because it's really cute. Like a little cushy pillow you want to hug (or eat).

• Do you have any new projects coming up that you can tell us about
Yes, I am writing and illustrating my first childrens book. It is a sad story so I am hoping will make people
cry :) I am trying to use visual metaphors to communicate different concepts. I will let you know when
I publish it.

• Any words you would like to pass it to new comer designer
1 - Sketch all the time.
2 - Attend figure drawing sessions.
3 - Watch and analyze japanese characters.

• What is your most favorite commercial design of your own
So far I haven't gone commercial but I hope the childrens book I an illustrating sells millions of copies! :)

• Name 5 designers you like it most
Sandy Wu - www.sandywu.com/
Aiko - www.studioaiko.com :)
Mark Ryden - www.markryden.com
Alberto Cerriteno - www.albertocerriteno.com
Nicoletta Ceccoli - www.nicolettaceccoli.com