Long-time readers of Smile Politely are probably already quite familiar with Matt Wiley’s art. Wiley (they/them) has been profiled by us several times, including for their book, My Cat is Depressed, and the choose-your-own-adventure online comic Fuzzy is the Night, both of which my own six-year-old is a huge fan. After seeing Wiley’s art on display at Boneyard Arts Festival this year, I wanted to catch up and see what’s new since the last time they spoke to Smile Politely. Here’s what they had to say:
Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Smile Politely: The last time you spoke with Smile Politely was to give us a preview of your project Fuzzy is the Night. I recently bought access, and I went through it with my daughter — it’s great! As soon as we finished, she wanted to start over and pick different options. How was the reception to this? I know at the time you said you didn’t have immediate plans for a follow-up choose-your-own-adventure game, has that changed? Do you have any other games in the works?
Matt Wiley: It’s been really fun. I had been wanting to do a short turnaround webcomic for some time, I’m really happy with it and people loved it while they were stuck at home during the pandemic. I’m planning an interactive version using YouTube’s video overlay function and have some friends in mind to do voices.
SP: How is Light Witches coming along? How long have you been working on it now? Do you find it difficult to work on the same thing for a long time?
Wiley: Light Witches is really moving quickly. I had to take a break to learn to 3D model in a new program since one was discontinued, since then I’ve been on it solidly most evenings for two years. Everything in this graphic novel is divided into phases like a movie. All the inspiration stuff is done, the script is written, storyboards are scrawled, rooms are being built, and I have a massive 400-line spreadsheet of everything that needs designed for each environment. Things as small as a prescription bottle label or cereal box, to things as large as fully-realized interiors of a spaceship or the exterior of a skyscraper. What’s nice about itemizing everything is I can pick and choose what I design from night to night. It’s a nice balance of structure and variety. Everything is designed from scratch in a variety of styles. A fun byproduct of this is people want physical copies of fake things I’ve designed, like this laundromat instruction poster in the fake language I’m using for all the set dressings. It would be really fun to do an exhibit or a storefront of ephemera from a fake universe.
SP: With long-term projects, do you find your approach or goals shifting the longer you continue? Or do you start with a clear idea and tend to stick closely to that?
Wiley: With any project that has this many moving parts, you need to be aware of scope creep; whether it’s client-driven or a result of boredom. Both in my personal projects and professional work as the Art Director at University of Illinois Extension, I have to create workflows that are sustainable and reproducible. For a book this big, the risks are having to redo artwork because of illustration skills evolving over several pages, the time involved drawing busy backgrounds, maintaining the likenesses of characters over a long period of time, and being able to post each issue on a regular schedule (since this graphic novel will be released as a webcomic first). Building everything in 3D is my way around that. Now instead of spending several evenings drawing a new angle of a room full of clutter, I can move the camera, hit render, and have a print-ready drawing in 90 seconds with minimal tweaks in Photoshop. Of course, it took a month to build that room, but now I can go anywhere inside it. It’s very much like creating an animated film or video game environments.
SP: You work in a lot of different media with illustration, animation, 3D; do you have a favorite medium to work in, or are you always trying new things? Have you ever tried something and just thought “nope this isn’t for me?”
Wiley: Animation is super time-consuming, and you’re competing with a massive amount of short-form content, so if you’re trying to stand out, you really must find that overlap between what you enjoy and what will hold people’s attention, or you’ll burn out trying to churn out content. The few times it’s worked for me is when I 3D modelled a fake logo over the campus Subway restaurant and got 1.6 million views on Tiktok. “Sbubby” is a reddit meme where you recreate a logo using nonsense words, but match the font style. This had the benefit of catering to an existing audience, using a trending audio meme in the style of Adult Swim bumpers, but also finding a novel way to adapt it in the form of animation over low-quality phone video to appear spontaneous. My lighting and texturing skills improved when I did it again for Dunkin Donuts.
SP: Do you have an all-time favorite project that you’ve done? If someone wants to check out your art for the first time, do you have something in particular you recommend?
Wiley: My website is the best stuff I have, but my favorite right now was from a few months into the pandemic. It’s a Meerkat Manor parody about wild toilet paper rolls living in Africa.
SP: Outside of your website, is there any place around C-U where people can check out your art?
Wiley: Since I work digitally, I don’t do a lot of gallery stuff, but you just missed a really fun show at Prism Studios during Boneyard where I had all kinds of concept art and posters from Light Witches. You can also get my children’s book at Art Coop, or my Suitcase Shop at Cafeteria and Company with stickers, buttons, and acrylic pins.
SP: What’s next for you?
Wiley: Other than the graphic novel? Experimenting with photogrammetry, learning how to make foam cosplay armor, an animated short about ladybugs, fake retro commercials, and cartoon taxidermy.
You can keep up to date with Wiley’s projects on their website and Instagram.