Innovation from Oddtoe

Need an Experiential Designer?

My background is in cartooning, graphic design, and data visualization so you’ll see those influences in my humor, art, and way of thinking.

If you're into...

Arts & Entertainment

VISUALIZATIONS to AMUSE

This is the “About Oddtoe” section, so I might as well show you around. I like and do a lot of types of art. Some of the favorites are street art, projection art, animation, and installation art. Want to amuse and stir the happy emotions of your audience? Welcome to my world.

The analog world...

Built Environments

PHYSICAL THINGS of WHIMSY

I adore the twin arts of garden and park design and sculpture. The logical child of these creative practices is topiary, of course. Therefore, I design in 3d with organic shapes in mind. Lately that has meant giant inflatables, where air does the holding-up. I often slam my shoe at government council meetings, demanding quirkier and more memorable public spaces. (So should you.)

The universe expands...

Three Dimensional & A.I.

DEEPER DIVES

I love a good third dimension and I also think I’m lucky to live in this new era of artificial intelligence. Those are two things you should know about me. Sculpture, animation, and prop art design are what I’m into — all visual art that leverages 3D and AI, if needed.

See Oddtoe's workSee Oddtoe's work

Arts & Entertainment

Pseudonyms aplenty...

About Oddtoe

Since 1996, I’ve been running my illustration, animations, and comedic writing under the pseudonym, Oddtoe.

Oddtoe has taken on new forms over the years. Since the pandemic in 2020, I pushed aside is my pen-and-ink style of illustration, and picked up an iPad Pro, experimented heavily with digital caricature and imaging compositing.

I’m loving the result and the new tools in this new pipeline of work.

Oddtoe as a business pairs up nicely alongside my data visualization agency, Datalabs. As part of my parent company, Data Arts, Oddtoe is taking on studio animation, art commissions, and 3d design projects.

And of course, my interest in storytelling is — spread like peanut butter — across both brands.

Examples of Past...

Creative Work in the Studio

Babbling to Baobabs
International Comedy Festival
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Melbourne, Australia
Tucker Tick Comic
National Geographic
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Washington, DC
Oddtoe Comic Panel
Instagram
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Melbourne, Australia
Oddtoe TV
YouTube
An example of weird art, illustrated scene from the Oddtoe TV series
Los Angeles, California
To the studio »To the studio »

Built Environments

Visualizing happy places...

Experience Gardens & Immersive Environments

I design outdoor spaces for two kinds of client. Government park planners, who decide whether a suburb gets another lawn or something people drive across town to see. And private owners, who want a garden with some mischief in it.

The work starts in 3D, because organic shapes model fast. That’s why topiary keeps turning up — a hedge is a sculpture that grows. After that it’s light, sound and projection layered onto something physical, until a two-metre baobab holds up its end of a conversation with a room of kids.

Planners get a flythrough, not a PDF. Put it on the screen at the council meeting. Councillors see it at real size — how tall it is, and what it looks like in July.

Then it gets built and photographed and ends up in the local paper. You’re the planner who backed it. Kids remember the tree that talked to them. Nobody remembers a lawn.

Planners who can take a joke end up with the places people visit on purpose.

For private clients it’s simpler. Tell me how the place should feel, I’ll tell you which plant does it, and we’ll build something your neighbors will have opinions about.

Boring parks are a policy choice. (So is the other kind.)

Title card reading The Geometry of a Topiarist over an isometric technical drawing of a formal topiary garden on a wireframe grid
An easy way to design efficiently in a 3d space is to use organics. Think topiary and vines.
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Oddtoe

About the role of geometry in topiary

Three Dimensional & A.I.

The Oddtoe Sweet Spot

Spaces & Characters

Three-dimensional modeling is what sets up the imagery and animation I create as Oddtoe. Dimensional data is the underlying and reusable asset for character designs and background art.

From an OBJ or FBX model, the value proposition of the studio I run is that visual stories can be told at scale. Generative AI is certainly taking a role in ideation. And with a background in data and 3d, I’m able to run a full-scale animation and design firm with limited overhead.

Close-up of a marble cherub bust with heavy-lidded eyes and pursed lips, part of Oddtoe's Cherubs of Yore sculpture series
Generative AI is good at blunt fusion. By that, I mean it's good at jamming two ideas together. This technology – with a human taste-maker at the helm — will show us forms that we've never seen before. Fantastic.
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Oddtoe

About the role of generative AI in sculpture

Questions & Answers

About Oddtoe

Who is Oddtoe?

Oddtoe is a Melbourne artist and animator working across generative AI animation, experiential design and public art. He has drawn under the Oddtoe name since 1996, with professional work since 2006 for organisations such as National Geographic.

What kind of art does Oddtoe make?

Two kinds: animation and physical work. The animation side covers generative AI animation, documentary and factual animation, and character design. The physical side covers kinetic and public sculpture, installation, projection, prop design and fabrication, topiary and sensory garden design, and robotics. Comedy writing runs through most of it.

Does Oddtoe use AI in animation?

Yes, in production every day. The studio runs a hybrid pipeline: generative AI produces imagery and movement, rigging keeps characters consistent, and traditional motion design carries the type, graphics and edit. Twenty years of drawing sits underneath — the AI is a tool in a trained hand, and art direction stays with one person.

Where is Oddtoe based?

Melbourne, Australia, and available for commissions in Los Angeles and Berlin.

What is Babbling with Baobabs?

A live children’s comedy show commissioned for Signal by the City of Melbourne and performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Professor Oddtoe — a scientist whose inventions include the Watermelhelmet and the cat selfie stick — unveils a machine that lets people talk to trees, and introduces Bab, a talking baby baobab who wakes to a nonsense chant, demands a bucket of coffee, and answers questions from kids in the audience live. Part stand-up, part science lesson, part digital puppetry through real-time projection.

What original stories and series has Oddtoe created?

The Oddtoe TV Show — an animated series with a full pitch bible — alongside Wire Taps, Date Night Confessionals, Gag Cartoonist Syndication and the Original Stories collection, all at oddtoe.com.

What is Oddtoe’s animation conferences guide?

An annually updated guide to the world’s animation conferences and festivals at oddtoe.com/animation-conferences/, ranking in Google’s top three for “animation conferences”. It lists dates, venues and deadlines, month by month, kept current year-round.

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