Fun with clay

Clay cartoon artist Paul Moldovanos tries to revive Victoria's waning 3D animation industry

By Lindsey Starr

Clayman Paul Moldovanos James Bay animation studio is every kids fantasy land.

When he first ushers you into the room, your eyes are overwhelmed by comic book colors and Saturday morning cartoon characters. Every inch of wall or shelf space is inhabited by either some form of poster or sculpture. Proudly displayed high in one corner is an illustration that Moldovanos did for MAD magazine.

Moldovanos is trying to revive Victoria's waning 3D animation industry from his studio in James Bay. Judging by those characters, he just might do it.

Remember the California Raisins and Gumby? Or Frosty the Snowman? They are part of a medium called stop motion animation. One can easily imagine Moldovanos ( a.k.a. The Clayman ) a stocky man with a mischievous face, as one of his own animated figurines.

Where can you see a glaring plucked chicken beside an old man clad in bondage gear hoisting a set of dentures? How about 'White Trash Barbie" in a box alongside a mock set-up of a Lewis and Clark expedition?

It's hard to believe that all these characters come out of one man's mind. It becomes harder to imagine once Moldovanos tells you that all his sculptures have been made in the past five years. Since Moldovanos moved to the island he has been passionate about bringing 3D animation back to Victoria. The only other studio was a clay animation studio that packed up and moved away years ago.

"Animation as a whole in Vancouver is a growth industry, yet in Victoria it's just ignored" he said.

The latest project the The Clayman ; Associates have been working on is 'Xiagra' a computer animated spoof about the effects of Viagra on a senior citizen. Although his characters are larger than life, Moldovanos himself is rather reserved. "In public I'm a little bit shy so I live vicariously through my characters" he said.

Before he became an animator, Moldovanos had several careers. For 10 years he was a restaurant owner and then went on tour with a traveling hypnosis comedy show as a stage manager. But life on the road took its toll and Moldovanos ended up in Victoria. It was here where he rediscovered his passion for sculpting.

" Initially I did some work with Sculpy making fridge magnets and the like, but they were so fragile that I never mass produced them. It wasn't until we moved to Victoria that I heard about a clay animation studio that was operating" Moldovanos interned at Victoria's only clay animation studio, but it moved to Vancouver a few years later. This is what inspired him to start his own 3D greeting cards reminiscent of Gary Larson's The Far Side. He test marketed the cards Canada. They ended up doing so well that Moldovanos started a Website that got him enough recognition to be accepted into the Wisenheimer, the National Cartoonists Society's bulletin board.

"All of a sudden all the old boys started telling me that I was wasting very powerful visuals on cheap gags" he said. Since then he's worked on a variety of projects. His first published piece was a feature in MAD Magazine parodying Toy Story and a short in the Vancouver Island Film and New Media Festival.

Moldovanos doesn't know what the next few years will bring but he remains positive that 3D animation is still a valid and meaningful medium in the new millennium and has definite advantages for smaller scale productions.