BENGALURU: In 2019, when Malayalam film Lucifer was released, webcomic artist, illustrator and designer Bhaghya Babu designed a comic with a dialogue from the movie. While it got a lot of traction online, the director of the film, Prithviraj Sukumaran, took notice of her work. With his latest release on Disney+ Hotstar called Bro Daddy, starring Mohanlal and Sukumaran himself, he approached Babu to draw his introductory scene.
Speaking to CE, the Kochi artist based in Benglauru says this is her first film work. “I was approached about three months ago and the next thing I knew was that I was buried in work with no social life. But that’s mostly on me!”
The introductory scene of the film brings alive the characters and draws a backstory to lead to the present time. “Sukumaran and I spent a good amount of time finalising the work. He was there with me throughout the process. I used to come up with ideas, storyboards and frames, run them by him and he’d help me with the dialogues to go with the required creatives. He was very receptive to the ideas,” she says.
Earlier this week, the actordirector took his Instagram page highlighting Babu’s work for the movie. To this, she says, “Normally in movie industries, no one credits the animators, VFX team or pretty much anyone working in the back-end. In this case, Prithiviraj was nice enough to give credits to everyone even during his interviews or any opportunity he got. It was refreshing to see that, especially because it’s my first project like this.”
Babu started working on comics when she was studying at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology. “I started working for a company after but I used to draw for myself and post on social media. Hailing from Kerala, my comics are mostly about debunking the myths and stereotypes people have about Keralites. I try to address that with my comics,” says Babu, who regularly participates in the city flee markets and Comic-Con events.
Since 2019, she’s been freelancing full-time and has worked with well-known companies like Kingfisher, Rapido and more. “I have a lot of things planned for this year but my immediate plan is to work on my new line of merchandise. I want to focus more on hats,
T-shirts, planners, pet accessories and more. Apart from these, I’m keeping myself busy with other projects,” says Babu, who is also working on transitioning to videos instead of images due to the change in trend on Instagram.