Find The Cutes - by Vincent & Celestial Noot

  If your childhood was anything like mine, you spent countless hours searching for a  striped sweater and toboggan in the Where's Waldo? series. If I'm being completely honest, I still enjoy hunting down that rascally devil.   
  However, when Waldo proves elusive, or you're tired of the familiar red and white stripes, you should probably check out Find The Cutes. Oh, and it's your lucky day because I convinced illustrator and co-creator, Vincent Noot, to grant me an interview!

  First, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, Vincent. As a fellow creative kindred spirit, I can only imagine the time it took you to create and illustrate this series. More on that in a bit, but let's kick things off by you telling us a bit about yourself.  
  I was born and raised in the Netherlands. I am 32 years old. When I came to America for the summer, I met my wife, Celestial. We dated and skyped and got married on May 10th, 2013. Because she is still in college, we live in Cedar City, Utah, where she studies Family Life and Human Development. I have always been into drawing, and we both love children, so together we came up with the idea for the book series "Find the Cutes."

  You studied Illustration and Graphics at the University of arts St. Lucas in Gent, Belgium and have also completed a study in portrait drawing, cartoon drawing and an airbrush course. Which of those studies is your favorite and why?
  I think I learned the most at the art academy in Belgium. It was the toughest and some of the teachers were very strict, but I like the results. I am better at realistic and accurate drawings because of it.

  
  
  What’s your favorite part of being an illustrator?
  It's in my nature to swirl the lines. I don't like straight lines, which is why I don't draw a lot of cars and architecture. But I love drawing the human body, clothes, and fluid substances, which require the artist to swirl back and forth.

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  You’ve had professional artistry experiences in the Netherlands, Asia, North America, and several European countries. Which country did you find the most inspiration for your artistry?
  I think Belgium was the most inspiring. There are great museums with realistic paintings, but the comic book culture is also a lot more popular there. 

  If you could meet any artist, who would it be and why?
 Greg Capullo or Angel Medina. They drew for a completely different genre and target group, but their work looks fantastic. I collected about a hundred "Spawn" comics when they were the illustrators of that series.

 
 Sounds awesome. So tell us more about Find The Cutes.
 Find the Cutes is a search book series, or seek and find...the concept is similar to that of the "Where is Waldo" books, but the characters, the style, the story, and many other things are unique and different. It's more child friendly, because we thought of environments that children find themselves in. On each page, you need to find the main characters, whose last name is "Cute" and their objects. It's a lot of fun and can keep kids entertained for hours.

  How did you come up with the idea?
  After working for a child day care center and illustrating for them, we thought of our own characters. Seek and find books have been very popular in the past, but I never understood why there were so few out there. (Now I know, because it takes hundreds of hours to draw one...who wants to put that much time into it, right?) We think it can become a great success, since we tested our product on many children. They absolutely love it!

  Which character is your favorite? Why?
  I think I like Cammy the best. She's cute and has the same brown hair as my wife. She also reminds me a little of my younger sister, who was always into all kinds of animals.

   On average, how many hours does it take to illustrate each page?
  It takes between 70-100 hours to draw a page. Considering there are between 300-400 characters on each page, that makes sense.

  Have anything else you’d like to plug?
  The book "Find the Cutes - Playtime" is the beginning of a fun, colorful series for children. We see the potential, because it's a great product. Like any other product, we hope to get our name out there and start skyrocketing sales. Anyone who reads this would help us a great deal by liking our Facebook page, or following us on Pinterest, Google Plus, Tumblr, or Twitter. Thank you for this interview!   

- Learn more at the Find The Cutes website -
&
 Purchase via Amazon or Vincent's store