Episode #178: Playfully Illustrating Polly Pocket Nostalgia with Amy Greenbank
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Ever since my childhood fascination with Polly Pockets, I've been enamored with toys and video games that allowed me to build worlds of my own. When I came across an announcement of a Polly Pocket book on Instagram, I knew immediately I had to dig deeper and get to know the people behind the book. My first outreach was to Amy Greenbank, an accomplished artist, and illustrator with a distinct style that calls back to the colorful pop art of the eighties and nineties. During this episode, we explore her artistic journey, from oil painting to digital illustration, revealing how being a consumer of products produced by the toy industry has significantly influenced the vibe of her work.
Amy Greenbank did not formally study illustration, but after building a passionate following of her artwork online, Amy got the attention of Maude Campbell, the author of the book “The Legacy of Polly Pocket, Mattel's Micro Moneymaker”. During this episode Amy takes us through the journey of finding her artistic style, experimenting with various media, finding her art people online, and how she creates artwork that gives you the feeling of your favorite toys from childhood.
This episode is a must-listen for all toy enthusiasts, artists, and those who simply love the nostalgia of their childhood treasures. Tune in and let Amy’s colorful journey inspire you!
EPISODE CLIFF NOTES
Discover who Amy Greenbank, the featured guest on episode #178 of "Making It in The Toy Industry", is and why her artistic style has caught the eye of the toy industry.
Curious about Polly Pocket's resurgence? Get a sneak peek into an exciting project Amy Greenbank is currently working on, which promises to bring the nostalgic toy back in a big way.
Learn about Amy's unexpected journey into the art world - no formal education, just pure passion, and a lot of YouTube videos.
Interested in where artists like Amy get their inspiration? Amy's source might surprise you.
Peek into Amy's early days in art - her exploration of oil painting and how she built her foundational skills might inspire you.
Discover how Instagram played a pivotal role in Amy's shift from traditional oil painting to vibrant toy painting.
Amy's shift from oil painting to toy painting began when she started exploring Instagram, where she found a community of other toy enthusiasts.
Amy’s art style was significantly influenced by nostalgic elements from the '80s and '90s
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
Follow Amy on Instagram
Buy The Legacy of Polly Pocket: Mattel's Micro Moneymaker on Amazon *paid link
Buy Cricket doll *paid link
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#178 - Playfully Illustrating Nostalgia with Amy Greenbank [Transcript]
Azhelle Wade: You are listening to Making It in The Toy Industry, episode number 178.
Hey there, toy people, Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of The Toy Coach Podcast, making it in the toy industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by the toy coach.com. Amy Greenbank is our guest today, and she is an illustrator, artist, muralist, and an art teacher who specializes in colorful eighties and nineties pop art.
You can kind of get the vibe if you're watching the video and checking out her background. Her favorite subject to paint is nostalgic toys, and she aims to paint them as we remember them. Filled with excitement and sparkle. She is currently illustrating the legacy of Polly Pocket by Mod Campbell and it it's gonna be published by the Nelle Company.
Amy is passionate about sharing her love of art and has created a series of books called Draw Doodle, use Your Noodle, which Allowed Children to illustrate along with her. So we're gonna chat with Amy today and one of the best pieces of advice she has to share with us is how to find your style. But we're gonna get into our whole story.
Amy, welcome to the show.
Amy Greenbank: Hello. Thanks for having me.
Azhelle Wade: Oh, I'm so happy we've made it happen. We've known each other for a while now. We made it happen. It's been a while. We've made it happen. So first I would love to start out with your toy story because some people might say a children's book illustrator.
How does that relate to the toy industry? But it does. So how did you get started in
Amy Greenbank: illustration? Originally, I was all oil paint and all the style of Bob Ross. And then I moved to portraits and I'll talk about this a little bit in a little while, but I thought as an adult that I should be doing portraits and the style of Bob Ross and landscapes and things.
But I worked through it and started working on digital illustration and eventually into the style that I have now. But I got into with toys with Instagram. That's where I started to find other toy people is on Instagram. And I would look at what other people post and just memories from my childhood and it kind of inspired me to start painting it myself.
Azhelle Wade: So were you, did you study illustration or art in college and then you were. Kind of working as a freelance artist? What was your
Amy Greenbank: journey? No, no, no. I didn't like, not at all. I don't have any formal education in art. It's all it's my passion. I just, a lot of YouTube videos, a lot of finding other artists that I really like.
And for me, actually, I. A lot of my art inspiration comes from packaging, like the old lunch boxes and the old McDonald's packaging and the packaging and current toys. I take what I like from those things and add it into my art, but I don't actually have any sort of formal training in it. So
Azhelle Wade: what was your, how did you get into oil painting?
Because that is, I mean, I was in, I was an artist, I studied art for a little, very little bit in my high school career. But I remember oil painting being that all elusive, like once you get to that skill level, you're ready to dive into oil painting. So how did you get there?
Amy Greenbank: That's funny. I haven't thought of it that way.
I actually started at age, I think nine taking Oh, wow. Yeah. So I guess I did have a, a little bit of formal training, but I was, I was pretty little at nine. I started going to a studio that taught. Like oil painting and it was, it was a lot of landscapes and stuff. And I did that for maybe four or five years as a kid.
So I got a really good start on like, how to mix colors and how to make a composition and just different techniques. So I did that for a long time all the way through college. I was oil painting, mostly landscapes. Oh wow.
Azhelle Wade: So then you, you head over to Instagram, you stumble across probably just looking for your own nostalgic toys.
And in the process of finding your style, finding your people online, decided to start painting toys?
Amy Greenbank: Well, I, I've always liked toys. I mean, I remember being in college and I would sneak over to the toy section at at Target and stuff because I just like them. I like the packaging and I like the bright colors.
And so yeah, on Instagram I actually started Instagram with my oil painting and portraits and really didn't meet very many people and I didn't have very many people seeing my artwork. And then on my own, I started kind of looking at the toys and it just took a while for me to realize that as an adult, it's okay for me to like these things.
It's okay for me to, really be excited by these bright colors mm-hmm. And start to put it into my own artwork. So I kind of slowly came to it. On my own to make that into my artwork, but it took years. Yeah. Talk
Azhelle Wade: to me a little bit about that process. One of the things I would love to talk about, That most people can't quite quantify is finding your style as an artist.
So once you figured out, okay, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna focus on this digital medium, how did you come about finding the style that you have today? Yeah,
Amy Greenbank: I'm glad you asked because I do. Before I found my style, I remember Googling it and watching YouTube videos. How do you find your style? Because you see artists on Instagram and you see they clearly have their style and.
How did they get there? And I, I went through a, a few different times where I was, I'm definitely a portrait artist and this is definitely my style, but it wasn't, it wasn't fulfilling, I guess. So the way, the path that I took to find my style was actually wasn't even intentional when my daughter was really little.
She and I used to watch Barbie movies together and that is the first time I can remember seeing something and thinking. Like the, the illustration style of that is just gorgeous. Those old, like nineties Barbie movies, the colors were so bright and vibrant and the backgrounds were soft and, and pretty.
And so then I, I tried to start working that into my artwork. At that time, though, I wasn't digital yet, it was a little bit harder, but then I thought, I'm gonna start paying attention. And I noticed that like on the the old toy boxes of the 1980s and nineties, like the toy packaging, the illustrations were always a little bit distorted.
The heads might have been a little bit bigger on the top, and the colors were super bright. And shiny, and I like that. So I took that and I like the Barbie artwork. I like the look of these like 1980s packaging. And then I was, I was thinking about what else. I like Lisa Frank and. Anybody that knows my artwork knows I love Lisa Frank.
She's a huge influence on me. So, maybe take a little bit from her and then I just kind of picked from what I liked pick I, I like this about Lisa Frank and I like this about rainbow Bright and take little pieces of all the things that I like and keep adding them into my artwork without actually like, Taking anyone's ideas, just take the the things that I like from it until I had my own like Frankenstein of styles that turned into being my style.
Azhelle Wade: So, this is really interesting to me cuz I, as a creative person who now does a lot of content creation, oftentimes I miss creating art and I want to. Just sometimes I'll literally just draw food cuz I'm like, I don't, I just wanna draw something that like, yeah, comes easy and natural and I can make chubby and cute and it look weird and fun.
So, so I guess my, my question here is when you choose okay, I really like those soft backgrounds. I really like that leopard print on top of the rainbow, let's say, like what artwork do you start creating? To Franken, sign all those things together. Do you say, I'm gonna draw a slice of pizza and the background is gonna be this soft pink and there's gonna be like leopard print pepperoni slices.
You know what, like what do you choose to draw to put on these different style additives too? Like how do you start there?
Amy Greenbank: For me it's almost like, it, it's almost like it's not a choice. I just will be somewhere in life and see something and, oh, I have to draw that. I don't. It's like, and then I have to draw it.
I kind of get a little obsessive if I see something that I think is really, this will look really cute in the Lisa Frank style or something. Then I, I guess I sort of put it together in my mind before I draw it. But a lot of what I do is actually I'll find something that I want and then I just draw it like in its most basic form with its regular colors.
Mm-hmm. And then I start adding on top of it and I start adding like a rainbow highlight to the side maybe. And then some shine onto it. And then same thing with backgrounds. I actually, I usually don't have those decided. That's part of the fun for me. I'll maybe put a leopard print background and then, oh, I don't like that.
And then so maybe I'll fade that away and put something else, or keep it and add some more on top of it. But that, that's what I enjoy is, it's like some people really like to do puzzles. I feel like for me, doing artwork is like a puzzle that I, I have to solve it as I go along until I can make it fit together.
Azhelle Wade: Right. Oh, that's, so, that's an interesting perspective. The artwork is like a puzzle. I haven't heard that before. I, I do know that part of your journey there was this chalk story.
Azhelle Wade: What was that? Chalk? What, what was that chalk story? It led kind of led you toward this path.
Amy Greenbank: It, it totally did. Yeah. So before, okay.
So there in my town, there's a chalk art festival every year where you're given some really nice chalk and a big. Piece of ground at a park and you draw a big chalk mural on the ground. It's a co, it's a competition to see who has the nicest chalk drawing. And so up until that point, this was maybe nine years ago, I was still doing a.
The style that I thought everybody thought that I should do. And I drew a large picture that was actually in lots of bright colors that normally was outta my style, but it got a lot of notice and a local restaurant owner came by and noticed it and then asked if I would paint murals in his restaurant.
Wow. So I did really interesting, bright, colorful portraits on the walls of his restaurant. And then I, someone from my downtown noticed it and asked if I would paint a large mural downtown. Where we had a tornado where I lived, and so some of the buildings got knocked down and they put up a temporary wall and asked me to paint a mural on that to kind of remember what happened.
Mm-hmm. And that was actually 60 feet long, that one. So it was really large. And I started to think if I can do these, if I can paint in a restaurant and I can paint in a mural and get some notice with the chalk, I'm just going to, I'm just gonna reach for whatever I want to try and see, see what I can do.
Azhelle Wade: And so, is that when you started on Instagram?
Amy Greenbank: Yeah, well I had been on Instagram before that, but it, I wasn't really connecting with very many people. But yeah. That's when I thought, I'm, I'm gonna do what I wanna do. I'm gonna put myself out there and try to connect other people. And for me, that's when it took off is when I, when I was true to myself and I actually did what I wanted to do right away, I started connecting with other people that had the same interests as me.
I think that might've been what my problem was before, is that I wasn't really interested in what I was drawing, so I wasn't finding other people. But once I was super interested, then I loved what they were drawing, and then I, and I loved what people were sharing of their retro toy collections and things, and that's when it took off a little bit more for me.
Azhelle Wade: Do you remember the first piece of artwork that you shared once you had this new found confidence to do what you wanted and focus on the retro toys and the,
Amy Greenbank: I think it, I think it was I think it was a painting of Doodle Bear. Oh,
Azhelle Wade: the one that you put in the washing machine?
Amy Greenbank: Yeah. Yeah. It was a, yeah, like a blue.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Material. Yeah. And what happened
Azhelle Wade: that was like, was it, IM an immediate takeoff, like you posted this and suddenly more likes than you'd ever had more comments than you ever had. Or was it this slow, gradual
Amy Greenbank: build? It wasn't an immediate takeoff. But it, it did start to, it was a gradual build, but it just kept building.
And so, and I realized, that was fun. I loved making that. And then I love connecting with people, so I'm gonna try again. And I kept trying, and then it, it kind of grew and changed a little bit too because I was only drawing toys that existed and I thought that I'm only gonna have an audience, I'm only have people that care about it if the toys actually exist.
And then I was on my own making toys up and mashing together different toys that aren't real. And then one day I was like, I'm just gonna throw one on there. And I, that's actually when, when I started to connect with the most people is when I put my own artwork. That I kind of, it was a McNugget, if you've seen my feed, I love McNuggets.
Yeah. The, the Happy Meal toys for McDonald's. And so I made a car Bear McNugget that didn't ever really exist and I got a lot of feedback on that, that people thought that was pretty funny. So I started, most of my artwork is toys that looked like they could have existed, but never actually did. Oh,
Azhelle Wade: interesting.
That's really cool. So you're hitting like a nostalgic, but then also. I don't know, this like creative desire and you, you can combine two different fan bases, like the people that love the Doodle Bear just making this up and people that love the McNugget. I don't know. You could combine those two things and make one that's really, yeah, that's, that's, it's I wanna say that's a lot of fun's.
Smart, but it's not smart because you really were just following the joy you were following what you just really enjoyed doing
Amy Greenbank: that. Exactly. Following the joy is exactly how I, how I feel.
Azhelle Wade: Yep. But it's hard to find the joy, especially as we become adults and we play less and less. It's hard to even identify what is the joy, because it becomes, do I really enjoy this or do I enjoy it because I'm getting praise and money even from it, it's so hard to distinguish. Absolutely.
Amy Greenbank: Yes, absolutely. How do you, how do you like
Azhelle Wade: distinguish that? Like whether it's an artwork that you actually loved making or if you just love it because of the love you're getting for it?
Amy Greenbank: Well, for me it's pretty easy to tell. Because again, I see something and it, and it's then it's stuck in my brain and I just can't focus on things completely until I get, I start to work on it.
And that happens to me a lot actually. Most days I'll be wandering through a store or something and I see something I wanna draw that. But then sometimes maybe with commissions or things that, yes, I've, I've thought, I bet they'll like this even though I'm not really into it. It's, it's a lot harder for me to get through making the artwork and I, a lot of times I think it actually shows in the artwork, you can see that I just wasn't as into it or maybe didn't put as many bright colors, as many, as many layers cuz I was just trying to get done with it.
Azhelle Wade: Literally see it in the bright colors. That's wild. Oh that's wild. It's so, it's so hard like as adults to align cuz you, you gotta pay the bills. It's hard to align everything from this joyful place, even though that is what is going to get the best reaction out of people and. That's, that's just such a challenge.
So Amy, you developed this incredible style with layers of Lisa Frank and Barbie movie and all these different things. But how would you describe your style
Amy Greenbank: today? So, the style that I have right now, so when I think back to when I was a kid and I remember holding my, my little ponies, that was my favorite.
And the sunshine, they were so bright and so sparkly and vibrant and That's how I remember toys in my memory. When I actually look at them right now, if I see the same my little pony that I had back then, it's not quite as bright and colorful and sparkly as I remember it. So I try to make my style actually a reflection of my memory of the toys rather than how they actually look.
That's where I get the colors. That's where I get the sparkle and the, and the shine is how I remember things. And I think
Azhelle Wade: that's also where you get that feeling from your artwork. Cuz it's not just about, oh, it's a pretty picture. It's like you get a vibe from your artwork. Yeah. Love it. Love it. I saw you Drew, I think I saw you drew a pople.
I did. I think I, I love pops and whenever I bring it up people are like, what's a pople? Oh no. But Amy knows. So I do know. So that matters. That's all that matters.
Amy Greenbank: Yeah. I love Ples. So
Azhelle Wade: you are this kind of self-made illustrator. How in the world did you get yourself involved to become the illustrator of a Pollock book released by the Nelle Company?
That seems so astronomically out of reach for people that even studied illustration. How did you make that happen?
Amy Greenbank: Well, it seems like before, maybe in the nineties and the early two thousands, you got things like that because you found an agent. And then your agent pitched to all different places and you, you found artwork that way or found opportunities that way.
Mm-hmm. But and I actually started out trying like that. I tried to find an agent so hard and it just wasn't happening. So it seems like the way nowadays to make something like that happen is through your connections and that's how that happened for me, kind of, I, I, one of the people that followed me on Instagram was Mod Campbell.
And she's the author of the book. And she actually reached out to me because she was enjoying my artwork, and she reached out to me and asked if I could draw. She didn't say why. She just asked if I could draw a Pollock compact for her. So I did. And she came back and said she loved it and wanted to know if I would illustrate the book that she was publishing within the cell company, which was amazing.
It was an amazing moment for me, amazing opportunity. So, yeah, I, I found her because I put myself out there on Instagram and because I had connected with so many people. That had the same joys that I had and it was, it was less of the business style that it used to be, at least for me. And it was more of finding people and getting to know people on social media.
Azhelle Wade: I like, how did you like, it's like you had an interview without really knowing you had an interview and almost thank goodness, cuz you probably would've been so much more nervous if you knew, she was like, this is a test to see if you're good for my book. You'd be like, oh my god, but here's the struggle that I see with art and I can see you don't have this struggle.
Okay, I shouldn't say that because I don't know what your internal journey is, but it seems like you don't have this struggle where. When I create a piece of artwork, even if I'm like, I'm gonna make the cutest shaped pizza ever, and it's so unrealistic. I'm still very much looking at that pizza, like, oh, it's not like balance and it's not perfect and things look a little wonky, but when I look at some of the illustrators that I love, yourself included, the imperfection is also part of the style, but like getting to the point.
It and I, and I scrolled back in your feet actually to, to try to prove this fact in. Like in the beginning, when it looks off, it just looks off. It looks like you're not, like you're like a hundred percent sure what direction you're going in, but as you refine it, that offness becomes the style and looks like intentional and secure and purposeful.
But I struggle and I'm sure other people listening struggle getting there. Like how did you get there to just be comfortable with the imperfection as you tweaked it and figured it out? Or did you just not notice it? Like how Yeah, tell me about that.
Amy Greenbank: Oh, that's funny that you should say that because that actually, that was a big thing for me.
Okay. When I was doing, back when I was doing the, the landscapes and the portraits and stuff. I would get mostly done with the artwork, and then I would, oh, it's just not good enough, and I would stop. And that, that was happening to me quite a bit where all of my pieces and I'm, I'm not gonna finish. It's just not, it's just not good enough.
And then I realized I don't re, I don't know what, what made me think of it, but this is huge for me. I realized it's never gonna be perfect, never. It's just gonna have to be good enough. And as soon as I internalize that everything opened up for me, I, I could make. So much more because I knew it's just not gonna be perfect.
It's just not. Mm-hmm. It's okay. And I felt like the whole world of ideas and being able to do things opened up for me. So anybody listening that's struggling with that, your, your artwork is not going to be perfect. It's never going to be perfect. It always could be a little bit better. So you just have to be happy with what it is.
And then also, as you were saying, stuff is a little bit off. Yeah, that's totally true. Because when you look at. Like children's book illustration, things are usually a little bit unbalanced. Yeah. Or like someone might have a giant head in a tiny body because that's what makes it interesting. If, if things were exactly in proportion, maybe like the style of the 1950s children's books, right.
Sometimes it's not as interesting or as unique to the illustrator. So I I like to make my. Pictures distorted, and I actually didn't do that at first. That's a newer thing for me to make 'em just a little bit distorted. Look like one end is kind of popping out at you and one end is fading away a little bit.
And I think that that's, that adds into my style and it makes it a little more interesting and a little bit more unique. Ooh,
Azhelle Wade: love it. Do you struggle keeping your style like photo a photo? Or image? Illustration. Illustration, I should say. Do you struggle? Do you have to memorize your style? Do you have to like, yes, I always have this layer and this layer and this layer.
Do you struggle, picture to picture like, wait, that's not my style. I don't know what happened. I must have forgotten like a white outline, you
Amy Greenbank: know? Not really. I, because a lot of it is just what I enjoy doing, but I do oftentimes I will look at my old artwork and wonder how did I do that shading on the purple or something.
I do refer back to my other artworks to see different techniques that I used. But no, a lot of it is, is really just led by what I feel like in the moment.
Azhelle Wade: Oh, I mean, I feel I need a little bit more on this. Like, how do you find and follow the joy in your art? Right. Do you have any other tips? Just what is, what is the feeling I guess you get when you start drawing something and it feels like you're following your joy? What is it?
Amy Greenbank: Well, I, I get, I don't know about other illustrators. I get a little obsessive when I get an idea in my head. I just keep at it and at it and tell, ah, that's what I wanted, but, Also, and it's a, this is a thing that I guess I've never really shared, but in my mind as I'm drawing something, I'll go, oh, now it's coming alive.
I can see when my drawing goes from the, just kind of a flat Yeah. Drawing to, it's got some life in it and I, I can feel it and I, and then I can feel when I need to keep going, and then I can, if I've gone too far, sometimes I'll make things too brighter, too colorful, and then I have to reign myself in a little bit.
But I, I know that the I guess I know that I'm finding the joy because. I'm really enjoying it when I, yeah, stop enjoying it a lot of times, then I just stop that artwork and move on to something else. So
Azhelle Wade: since this is a toy podcast, let's, let's wrap this conversation up with a focus on this book and I would love to talk about some, some story of struggle and success in the process of illustrating this book.
So what were some challenges you faced while taking on something this major?
Amy Greenbank: Well, these are Polly Pocket compacts and those are really detailed. So I wanted to keep my style with the kind of the Lisa Frank Rainbowy shadows and slightly out of proportion at the same time as drawing really tiny pieces, the little tiny poly pockets and her, her little pets and her furniture.
Yeah. So that would be a little bit of a struggle with trying to, trying to add all of that in with such a tiny, such a detailed drawing.
Azhelle Wade: Yeah. How many illustrations did you do for this book?
Amy Greenbank: It kept changing toward the end. Maybe between 15 and 20. Okay, great.
Azhelle Wade: Like how, how long does one of, can you share?
If you can't, it's fine, but how long does one of your illustrations take
Amy Greenbank: those? I had to work a little bit faster. I was on a timeline. Yeah. But they were super detailed. I'm gonna say maybe 15 hours on those each. Wow. Wow. It was, but it was a lot of dedicated time. I had a, not a huge amount of time to do 'em, so I was drawing a lot.
Azhelle Wade: Wow. If you could go back in time and give advice to yourself, like chalkboard you, who's like entering the chalkboard competition, what advice would you give her?
Amy Greenbank: It's not gonna be perfect, although, I mean that, that version of me had already figured that out. Yeah, I guess it's not gonna be perfect. And also really follow what you want, because that was the beginning of that journey.
For me. Don't worry about what you think is gonna get you noticed or what's going to earn you some money right now. Just think about what you wanna draw, what you enjoy looking at, and what you enjoy making.
Azhelle Wade: This is such a bigger message for everyone in everything, illustration, toy design, marketing, whatever your job is or your freelance career focusing on.
What you enjoy versus what people expect of you is so much easier said than done. But I'm so absolutely. I dunno, I'm so inspired by, by you having achieved that and, and continuing to achieve that. Like you're not just saying, I've done it, I'm done. You are, you've done it. And every day it seems like you're, do I still enjoy this?
Do I still like the shadow? Okay. We'll still keep adding this. Like you're still exploring that. Yeah. I love that. That's so great. Yeah. So I would love to hear about if you have any recent successes, whether it is with this incredible poll pocket book or maybe something else you have down the pipeline, anything recent.
Amy Greenbank: Well, the Polly Pocket book is really huge for me. I'm very excited about that one. So, yeah, that's, that's my big recent success. Another, I guess, sort of success is that the, some of my idols from when I was a child, like Muriel Farian, who made strawberry shortcake people like her, I, I connect with them on Instagram and they see my artwork.
Oh, really? And yeah. Also oh, that's cool. Someone who, rich, who used to, I can't think of his last name, but he used to direct the McDonald's commercials from, from the eighties, has reached out and said that he liked my artwork. So for me, what that's huge, it's just a personal success for me, but it's huge and like a dream come true.
But as far as my artwork goes definitely the book. Also, I've got some diamond art out and also I've just started illustrating for a magazine. A cake decorating magazine, so, oh, that's so cool. And I'm hoping to keep going. Yeah. Do you have an agent yet? No.
Azhelle Wade: Are you looking for an agent in case
Amy Greenbank: anyone's listening?
Well, I, you know, I haven't actually thought about it because right now I'm really enjoying meeting people through social media. I'm finding, I'm finding opportunities that way.
Azhelle Wade: Oh, that is so amazing. Social media, and I, I agree. Sharing. What you're doing is su is. Such the path towards success. When I changed over like my podcast artwork from just text to texting me, I shared it in a podcast group and it, and they were so supportive cause I was nervous about it.
And they were so supportive and that led to so many opportunities. So I think getting, you're right, like getting into the spaces where your people are, people that are interested, interested in your illustration style or your podcasting style and sharing what you're doing is, Is the way to find new opportunities.
Okay. I have some closing questions for you. These are my favorite closing questions. Number one, I would love to hear the best piece of advice that you actually received throughout your illustration journey that you've applied. Hmm.
Amy Greenbank: A lot of my illustration journey has, has kind of been on my own oh, since I don't really have, you know, like a formal education with it.
So. I, I guess I do have one. I went to a, an illustrator's conference a few years back because I really wanted to try to get an agent and jump into children's book illustration. And it was kind of what you already said, where you don't keep, don't try to keep everything perfectly in proportion.
Don't try to keep everything balanced. If you look at in children's books often, like if a kid is running their off balance in a way that a kid couldn't really run, they couldn't really pause in that way. So, try not to keep everything. Exactly as it is.
Azhelle Wade: Ooh, that's a good one. Oh, what is, I'm sorry, this is an extra question.
What is your big goal or hope or anything for your illustration career? Do you wanna do more books? What else do you wanna do?
Amy Greenbank: I would absolutely love to do more books I love, I. Illustrating books, but I would also love to do toy packaging. That's my goal right now. That's my big one is toy packaging or like inserts.
Like collectors guides that come along with toys. Yeah, those are my big ones. Oh,
Azhelle Wade: you write podcasts for that? Aiming green bang bang people. She's looking to do toy packaging illustration. There's definitely people listening that might need you for that. That's amazing. Okay. My last question's, my favorite question.
What toy or game blew your mind as a kid?
Amy Greenbank: So it was probably cricket. Do you remember Cricket?
Azhelle Wade: No. What's that? No, I'm Googling it.
Amy Greenbank: Oh. Oh. It was a large doll. You have to look it up. It was a large doll like the size of a three year old or something. And it was sort of like teddy Ruxpin, but it was a, a girl and you would put cassette tapes into her back and she would like, she would look around and tell stories and sing songs, and she was just, My best friend.
Is it the kid's blonde? That all. Oh her. She's got little blonde pigtails.
Azhelle Wade: Oh my. I wish. I have never seen this. I don't know this. Oh, so neat. Her
Amy Greenbank: mouth open and closed and her eyes lookeded around and I just loved it. And then I could record my own cassettes and stick it in there and she could, I could talk through her too, so that neat.
A toilet. Oh, that's cool. Blew my mind with the kids. That would scare me. Oh no. She was so poor. Oh wow. Oh yeah. I love that
Azhelle Wade: one. That makes sense that they would put a cassette in a doll. I've never seen that before. Yeah. But I guess when I was coming up, like cassettes were just ending. Like my own, I had, oh yeah, one album on cassette.
It was Tragic Kingdom and And it was like, people were like, why are you buying the cassette? There's a D, there's a cd. And I was like, I don't know. Yeah, it was a little before that. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for joining me today, Amy. Where can people connect with you? Whether they wanna be your agent or they're looking to hire you for some packaging illustration, where can they reach out to you?
Amy Greenbank: Well, my main place is on Instagram at Amy Greenbank Art. I'm also on Facebook at Amy Greenbank Art too, so that would be the best place to find me.
Azhelle Wade: All right, fantastic. I will put all of your details in the show notes. Again, thank you so much for being here today. It was a pleasure to chat with you.
Thank you.
Amy Greenbank: It was.
Azhelle Wade: Well, there you have it, toy people. My interview with Amy Greenbank. Amy is the illustrator of the new book about all about Pollock that's coming out in 2024. The book is called The Legacy of Poll Pocket, Mattel's Micro. Moneymaker. So I'm so excited to have interviewed Amy on this podcast.
When I chatted with her to prepare for this episode, the number one thing that stuck out to me was how she found her style. So I hope you really took that away from today's episode. Amy mentioned that identifying the little things that you like in different artwork and trying to add those things into your existing artwork.
Bringing perspectives from other brands like. Toy packaging into her artwork and combining all of those things to find your style. That's what she did to develop the style she has today. And that bit of advice that she learned during her process of looking for agents is that the artwork is never gonna be perfect, and that's okay.
It's actually a little bit better. To make the artwork. Four things, like children's books more interesting. Another great takeaway from this episode is how powerful following the joy is. If something lights you up, it's very likely it might light up some other people too. So don't be afraid to follow your passion.
Follow the joy behind the art or the content or the products that you wanna create so you can connect with people that also find the joy in those things. As always, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I know there are a ton of podcasts out there, so it really doesn't mean the world to me that you keep tuning into this one.
Until next week, I'll see you later toy people.
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