Interview with Redwall TV Series Artist Steven Ahola

Contributed by LordTBT at 5:09PM GMT, 1 August 2022

Continuing our celebration of more than 20 years of the Nelvana Redwall TV Series, we have a special interview today.

Steven Ahola is an artist, animator, and illustrator who is best known for working on films and TV shows such as Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Babar, Little Bear, CardCaptors, and Blaster’s Universe, among others.

Ahola also worked on promotional artwork for the Nelvana Redwall TV Series. Many of these art pieces graced the covers of DVD releases, like Redwall - Season 2, Mattimeo - Slagar the Slaver, Mattimeo - To Be A Warrior, and Mattimeo - The Abyss.

Along with others from the professional artist group MBartist, he exhibits his work at pop culture conventions across the U.S. The Redwall Wiki recently met Ahola at one of these conventions, where we purchased a print of the North American poster for season two (a 12x18 "lobby card"), and had it signed by him in-person (below)!

We talked to Ahola about his career and work on the Nelvana Redwall TV series.

How did you get your start in TV and animation?

My first gig in TV / animation was with the National Film Board of Canada on a short called 'the Sandwich'. Was lucky enough to catch on after my first year of animation at Sheridan College as a character designer.

Was this always a career path you wanted to pursue?

Not always. Even though I was big into comics and sketched a lot in my youth I was more of a sports guy. Wasn't until Disney’s Aladdin came out did I get the animation bug. Had no idea it was a viable career choice until my senior year in high school.

How did this lead to involvement in Nelvana's Redwall TV series?

My involvement with Redwall came when I was senior illustrator in the still art department.

What was your official role, and what were your responsibilities?

Our job was to create the marketing assets and promotional art work for all the shows.

Were you familiar with the books? How many seasons did you work on the show?

I was familiar with the books but not the story. I specifically worked on season 2 and creating the promotional artwork for the show and episodes in [the] North America and European market.

What did the marketing assets and promotional art consist of?

I principally worked on season 2 and was responsible for creating 11x17 promotional assets for North America and Europe. After that I created 9 episodic 11x17 images for after market release.

Steven Ahola art print, photo courtesy of LordTBT

Were you given instructions for specific characters to include and their positioning?

I actually had a lot of creative freedom on these. Other than needing to reflect the story no other notes were added. For this series I wanted to push a cinematic movie poster feel and as a big Drew Struzan fan wanted to borrow from his stylization where it would fit.

How did this work differ from other art positions?

My position was unique as I existed outside of the normal production teams within the marketing department but not if that makes sense. This gave me the luxury of being able to work on all shows in production. As long as I followed the established designs and story of each show I had a lot of creative freedom.

How did you create the Redwall artwork? What was your process? Did you use any special tools, technology, or software?

My process when starting a new series was to digest any scripts, storyboards or early animation to develop an overarching motif and design style for the marketing assets. In Redwall's case I wanted to have a cinematic poster feel like Drew Struzan to match the epic adventure narrative of the story.

I also loved the design of the map and wanted to use that to connect all the imagery together similar to the Goonies and Hook posters.

Once I had the motif and design structure in mind I would thumbnail visual concepts from the 13 episodes which would be sent to the producer / director of the show to chop down to their favourite 9 and signed off by marketing.

Upon approval I would take the thumbnail and blow it up to 11x17 and start fleshing out the competition and characters in different pencil colors.

Once I got that warm fuzzy feeling the rough 11x17 drawing would do the next lap through approvals.

Next step is cleanup as I or my assistant would ink each character on a separate sheet of paper as marketing wanted the flexibility to pull rearrange and use elements for various applications. Once all the image layers are completed would be scanned and recompiled into Photoshop to be coloured and match the original rough composition. We were the first department to use Photoshop at the studio as painted cells were in production.

Were there any species or characters you gravitated towards drawing? If so, why did you feel connected to them?

I gravitated more to the villains of the show because I could draw them more detailed, gritty.

The good guys always had to be drawn soft (it is a kids show after all). Favourite character was Slagar the Slaver.

Fun fact I did a poster based on the [moment] when Mattimeo unmasks Slagar for the first time revealing his scarred face. Which was the only time a concept of mine was rejected by the broadcaster. Still have the original.

In 2021, Netflix announced plans to adapt Redwall into an animated movie and accompanying event series. What was your reaction to this news? Any words of wisdom you'd give their team as they journey into the world of Redwall?

Had no idea Netflix was doing that. Awesome! No words of wisdom but hope they are able to be more true to the original material and apply the amount of texture and depth the story deserves both visually and narratively. The original series were very much limited by budget and broadcasting rule limitations to do it justice.

They will never top Tim Curry as Slagar.

What advice would you offer to someone who wants to work in animation?

Best advice I can give an aspiring animator is to be adaptable. To stay employed you need to be able to jump from style to style without sticking out.

In a production you are one of many and the character and show stylization needs to flow seamless as possible scene to scene, artist to artist.

Also learn and polish your craft traditionally (paper and pencil). Too many young artists only know their craft through computer which becomes a crutch as it can hide weaknesses easier.

Thanks so much for your time, Steven!

Follow Steven Ahola and his fellow MBArtists to see where they'll be next, it could be a convention near you. You can also order Redwall TV Series art prints like the one we have online by visiting here.