010: Lae Morales

Based in Guam, Lae Morales, also known as Baby Kaiju is a digital clip art artist. Her work brings together various aspects from different styles and mediums to bring her imagination to life.

Her life as an artist began in college when she was studying biology. When she was unmotivated, she looked to digital art for therapy. After browsing and carefully selecting different elements she found online, she put them together to create otherworldly artwork. Despite not having access to many tools back then, she was able to use it as a starting point to explore her interest in art.

Nowadays, she has not only expanded the tools she uses, but her artwork has also evolved to incorporate many aspects of her life. From Studio Ghibli movies and Donald Glover to going out with her friends and the Piti Channel, she finds inspiration everywhere. These influence her vision to create worlds that seem to be both grounded in reality but also somehow defy imagination. By playing with vibrant colors and sometimes adding interesting elements such as galaxies and stormtroopers from Star Wars, she exhibits curiosity and playfulness through her artwork.

To read Baby Kaiju’s interview, continue reading below. Also, check out her Instagram! Thanks again for agreeing to meet with me.

Describe what you do.

I make digital art using Photoshop and Adobe. Sometimes I'll bring it over to Lightroom where I'll do some editing with the colors and sharpen the details or when I’m not satisfied with the shadows. But a lot of the time, I just use Photoshop. Lately, I've also been using After Effects though because I've been messing around with video editing.

How would you define art?

I feel that a lot of times art has something to do with… Well, for me it's just the things that I do. Sometimes, it’s what's going on with my life. If I were to go out somewhere and I see something, I'll take a picture and I'll make something with it. So I feel like art is mostly just my vision, like life experiences or my imagination. If I hit creative blocks, I’ll watch movies and YouTube a lot or I'll just scroll through my Instagram account. I follow a lot of other artists for inspiration.

Why did you choose your art form?

I guess because I don't like to draw. Or I don't like to draw necessarily. I don't have a lot of motivation to pick up a pen and paper or paint like others. I don't feel inspired or motivated to do that as much as I am with a lot of digital art.

How has your ethnicity/race affected the type of art you make?

I feel like it doesn't really affect me.

How did your high school/college years affect the work you make today?

When I was in college, my major was biology but I was bored with it at the time. I was stressed out a lot so the first piece I made was when I didn't want to study. So I turned to art over studying and I think that was how I started. It was a therapeutic thing and it just started building up from there.

Who do you idolize?

I like Donald Glover. He’s a singer, he’s an actor, he’s a comedian, I think he’s also directing this show... I think it’s called Atlanta. I just like him because he just puts himself out there. If people were to tell him that you can't do this, he’s always like “I could do that.” He has this thing… he’s never in one place. He always wants to do something. I kind of like that where he's always challenging himself to learn more or go beyond what you put your mind to or what people try to tell you what you can't do. Also, Tyler the Creator. Tyler the Creator was saying that he was tired of being a rapper so he decided to start a retail company. He feels that he could grow more in different aspects. I feel like I relate to that. That we all can do that. I look up to those two a lot.

Where do you get your inspiration?

I feel that I get it when I'm just walking through life. It's kind of hard to explain because a lot of people ask me that. I like taking pieces from everything I see and experience and putting them together.

What do you like incorporating most into your art?

I've been messing around a lot with galaxies and colors lately. I also like playing around with shadows.

What is something that you add to your art as your signature?

I like adding a lot of grain.

Take us through your process for making art.

I start by grabbing photos from websites like Pexels, Unsplash, and Pixabay. For example, lately, I've been really heavy on Cyberpunk Edgerunners, the TV show, so that kind of played a role recently. I wanted to create a scene with a lot of buildings so I browsed and found individual pictures that I could use that weren’t copyrighted. With these different pieces, I cropped, edited, and put them together. I’ll also add in elements like some paintbrush and Gaussian blur to make it look like it’s glowing. There are a lot of layers that I’ll put together to create the theme and image I’m going for.

What do you struggle with the most when making art?

I don't know. A lot of times, I'll get if I get a creative block, I won't be making anything for a while. Then I don't feel like anything is speaking to me. But when I find that inspiration, I'll just go into editing mode and I’ll stay home or I'll go out to like cafes and just milk it until like I’m burnt out. Sometimes people will ask me to go out but I'll tell them “No, I'm editing right now.” I'll even put my phone on Do Not Disturb or Airplane Mode so I can edit since I don't know how long my creative blocks go for. Sometimes it’s 2 weeks where I won’t make anything. I feel like the frustration is there like finding stuff that I like working with or finding inspiration but I think that's pretty common. I’m a huge fan of movies, especially Studio Ghibli ones like Castle in the Sky and The Secret World of Arrietty, so they sometimes play a role.

What role do artists have in society?

Well, we kind of put things out there that a lot of people can't really say or do but then we’ll express it for them. There are other artists out there— I know I can't really do illustration— but then, they kind of like put it together that makes sense to me.

For example, if you were to tell an artist or a tattoo artist, “Oh, I kind of have an idea to have this or that.” They can picture it and piece it all together for you. Then when they give you the tattoo, you like it. You weren’t able to express that but another person was able to do that for you and bring it to life.

What characteristics do you think all artists share?

Trying to be perfect. I don't know, actually. I feel that we can put ourselves in a box where it's trying to be like… a circle. Becoming a perfect circle.

What’s your favorite place in Guam?

My home. But if it were to be outside, Piti Channel like the one that I have here [referencing one of her artwork]. So this is in Piti and you have to walk through this bank area. Then you go to the rocks. The waves are really nice and it's really nice when it's sunset. I feel like it's pretty calming there and the water always looks really nice.

How has your artwork evolved over time?

Maybe with tools. For my first couple of pieces on Instagram, I didn't have a lot of tools like Adobe. I used my iPad and made what I liked using PicCollage. It was an old iPad so I didn’t even have an Apple Pencil. After that, my friends donated to help me buy a new Mac because they really liked my art and knew that I put a lot of work into it. I feel like tools definitely play a big role because if you look at my first pieces, it’s a little rough.

Do you have any tips for aspiring artists?

To just start. It’s s very simple. I see a lot of YouTube videos where some people would talk about like, “Oh how did you get inspiration?” You just start. Someone said that they wanted to start drawing but they had this huge creative block or they couldn't figure out what to do. They told him to draw this specific bird and draw it every day.

And it’s like, “Why would I want to draw a bird?” And in response, he said “Just do it, just start. Like I want to see your bird every day.” You would draw this bird, and after a while, you’d get bored so you start using the bird for other stuff like a comic or adding something like a hat and so it keeps building up from there.

Is your art geared towards a specific audience?

No. Usually, I make it for me and then I'll just put it out there. A lot of people also make requests so they’ll just give me an idea of what they want and then I could put it together depending on what they’re looking for.

But a lot of times, it's mostly what I feel, what I went through, or what I'm thinking. I took a picture the other day while I was out and, at the time, I was watching the Mandalorian, so I kind of put in a Star Wars theme into it because I thought it would be fun. Sometimes I think like, “Oh, this world is too chaotic… what if we travel or go to another world or another dimension,” or “What if we could parasail to another planet” as if it's that easy to go there. So I think I don't really have an audience. I just always think I want to be in another dimension and imagine what's going on in that world.

011: Francis Labrador

009: Paula Aboy