The Snow White-Inspired Art and Animation of Kate Hughes

Artist and animator Alias Hugo (also known as Frankenchokie), real name Kate Hughes, makes use of a fresh, humorous perspective and a dynamic range of color to bring her works to life.

Kate's edgy but playful style of illustration comes through in her interpretations of Snow White, the Evil Queen, and other iconic Disney characters.

9 Disneeeeey Gals,

1. The Snow White Queen.
2. Tinkerbell
3. Bianca Neve a.k.a Snow White
4. Cyndi (Cinderella)
5. Minnie
6. Ursula
7. Jasmine
8. Aka (Arial)
9. Nichiko (Aka Sleeping Beauty)

A native of Ireland, Hughes is currently a third-year animation student at the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT). She points out that...

IADT is one of only two colleges in Ireland that offer a degree course in animation, and demand is increasingly high for places there, so I feel very lucky to have had my portfolio accepted!

Mirror Mirror

Her Snow White-esque Burn Baby contains an anti-smoking message in a very Hughes-esque fashion:

Basically the message of this is "Cigarettes contain Tar", if there needs to be a message...

She looks sticky... I dunno - I just wanted to create something that looked unpleasant to touch, and yet weirdly appealing - as all toxic things are, it seems.

Burn Baby

Disney Bad Girls Avery Style

Wicked Queen in Tex Avery style

More from Kate:

Since I can remember, I've always been drawing. Blessed with a chronically overactive imagination, as a child I poured endless fantasy lands and creatures out of my head and onto paper. The natural next step was animation - bringing drawings to life is almost something out of a fairytale itself.

Fairytales lend themselves so well to a drawn medium, as anything is possible - I can set my film anywhere, dress my characters in lavish costumes, and have magical things happen without worrying about the huge costs that come with live-action filming.

Stills from her animated short, Reflection.

"Based on (sort of) the story of Snow White," this is Kate's year-two student film project. Still frames and backgrounds were created using traditional methods and Adobe Photoshop, compositing was done in After Effects, and the characters were animated with Flash.

For "Reflection", I used some of my favourite fairytale illustrations for inspiration: the linear, richly decorated work of Harry Clarke (1889 - 1931) and the much more recent illustrations of FSc (Foo Swee Chin) - who worked on the "Nightmares and Fairy Tales" series.

Special mention should also go to Kevin MacLeod, who provided the music for my film - he has a huge catalogue of royalty-free music.

So now, sit back and enjoy...Reflection.

Video and all images copyright Kate Hughes. Used with Permission. For more info, see her Alias Hugo DeviantArt site and Frankenchokie youtube channel.