Pasadena Illustrator Turns Taco Into Animation Film Character

“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2” has a total worldwide gross of more than $250 million as of last week. One of its illustrators is a resident of Pasadena who only started his craft by tracing characters from a television screen when he was young.

Andre Medina, 32, is the man behind Cloudy’s Watermelophant and Tacodile characters. He said the concept of a Tacodile—a half taco, half crocodile creature—came about while he was eating at a popular taco restaurant.

“I went to Taco Bell and looked at the taco and I was like, ‘How can I turn these two into a food creature?'” Medina said.

Medina created several sketches of “Tacodile” and was later able to come up with “Tacodile Supreme”—a crocodile-like creature that has a body of a taco, onion teeth, garlic sauce as saliva, an olive as an eye, red peppers for limbs and a dark green pepper for its tail.

He noted that the period of time given to him to create characters vary.  “Usually, you’re given a character on a Monday and you’re supposed to finish it by that Friday.”  Medina said.  But he was given two weeks to create the Watermelophants, “Foodimals” character, with the physical characteristics and behavior of an elephant, which he said is a lot of time to work on one drawing.

“I was given two weeks [to create the Watermelophants]. For the first week, I was just trying to draw as many characters and designs based on elephants as I could” Medina said. “The second week would be like narrowing that down and then doing the final phase.”

Medina said working as an illustrator and character designer at Sony is a dream job and a lot of fun, but it also takes a lot of hard work.

He noted that animated movies usually take three to four years to finish and that illustrators usually work in small groups of eight people or less.

“A movie can go through probably three or four different movie takes [completed films],” Medina said. “If the movie isn’t successful, we’ll change directors and staff. In this, you have to be open to change.”

Teamwork is the key to finishing every project, said Medina, who has worked at Sony for over two years.

“As far as the team that I work on, everyone was considered an equal. There were people who were calling the shots, but no one was like, ‘Oh, because you’re a junior/senior, you’re doing this,'” Medina said. “Everyone worked together to get things finished.”

Medina is currently working as a character designer on two other animated movies, “Kazorn” and “Hotel Transylvania 2.”

Small beginnings

The Pasadena artist immediately started working with major studios after he graduated from the California Institute of the Arts. He also worked as a freelancer on a TV show called “Gravity Falls” and illustrated a book for Simon & Schuster.

He said that being able to work at big companies is a “dream come true.”

“I loved it. Working with the team that we had was really awesome,” he said. “Everyone was really giving up their time and sharing, and they just wanted to cultivate newer artists.”

When he was young, he said he used to pause animation movies on television and trace characters from the TV screen.

“I remember watching Looney Tunes on TV. I would pause the VHS and draw from the TV,” he said. “From a very young age, I had loved animation.”

It was in college when he met the person that later hired him to work for “Cloudy.”

“I went to Cal Art and there I built my own skill set of drawing and draftsmanship and worked on a portfolio,” Medina said. “There’s a teacher who had a class and wanted a special guest to come and speak with Craig Calman. He mentored me. He’s the one that ended up hiring me for the ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.'”

Medina worked for other animated shows including “Banyard,” “The Simpsons Movie” and the TV show “The Simpsons.” He also interned at Walt Disney Animation Studios.

For budding illustrators and graphic artists, Medina’s advice is to just keep on drawing.

“A lot of people say don’t trace a drawing. Actually, that’s where you learn the most. When you’re tracing someone else’s drawing, you’re learning how to design, how to do structure, how to put them in a pose and put character within your design,” he said.

“Drawing everything that you love will just get the creative juice [flowing] and you will learn a lot about design,” he added.

Medina said that Sony is a great place for college students to intern because everyone is so giving of their knowledge.

You can keep up with Andre Medina and see some of his characters on his blog at:

andre’s art and such….and such

And you can also see some of the concept art for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 at:

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 Concept Art by Andre Medina