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Juan Pablo Machado | |
|---|---|
| Education | École Émile-Cohl |
| Notable work | Lofi Girl |
Juan Pablo Machado is a Colombian-French artist. He is best known for his animation work on the channel Lofi Girl.
Juan Pablo Machado is originally from Cali, Colombia. [1] [2] After a stint at an art school in Bogotá, he moved to Lyon in 2013 to study at the École Émile-Cohl. [2] He left the École Émile-Cohl in 2018. [3]
In 2017, during his final year of study, he decided to respond to a call for artists received by his school. [4] [5] [6] The call came from the YouTube channel ChilledCow (now Lofi Girl), which broadcasts lofi hip-hop music live. [7] The channel originally used an image of the character Shizuku Tsukishima, from the Studio Ghibli movie Whisper of the Heart showing the character of Shizuku studying. [8] However, ChilledCow's stream had been taken down due to copyright infringement, so it called for an artist. [4]
The founder of the channel wanted "a student busy reviewing her courses, with a visual in the style of Miyazaki". According to Machado, "I didn’t know anything about hip-hop lofi hip-hop, nor did I draw my style from Japanese animation. I took it as a challenge". [7] Several positions for the character were tested, including a lying position, at the end of which the character would return to her initial position; the lying position was unused because it was too long to animate. [9] The background was originally left black to save time, [2] However, the idea to show the passage of time emerged, and Machado decided to make Lyon's La Croix-Rousse hill appear by the window, with the sky changing to match the time of day. [2] [10] [11] [12]