Artist Martin Bullock Creates Funny Animal Mashups With Photoshop

Artist Martin Bullock found a unique pastime during the pandemic lockdown: creating hybrid animals. This hobby, partly inspired by Margaret Atwood’s “Oryx and Crake” and the classic film “The Island of Doctor Moreau,” led to the birth of what he calls Pixelmated Animals.

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Bullock’s journey began with an old editing program named “Pixelmator,” which inadvertently lent its name to his creations. However, he later transitioned to using Photoshop, though the essence of his process remained largely unchanged.

In creating these imaginative creatures, Bullock often starts with either a background or a facial image, then browses through Adobe stock to find elements that either harmoniously blend or strikingly contrast. His approach mirrors traditional collage-making, where he meticulously cuts out selected parts and overlays them onto a new image. The process involves careful erasing, blending, and color correcting to achieve a seamless integration of the disparate elements.

While Bullock has embraced generative fill as a revolutionary tool for enlarging and expanding images, he prefers to limit his use of AI in his art, relying primarily on his creativity and manual editing skills to bring these fantastical animals to life.