Artist Shows Insides Of Animals, Cartoons

It may not have occurred to you that you need to see the guts of the Little Mermaid, or the bones of one or all of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but street artist Nychos decided that you do, or at least, he did, and created some amazing and weird drawings. They almost look like unfinished autopsies, with various innards strewn not far from the characters' outer skins. The scale of some of the drawings, on the sides of large buildings is really impressive. Nychos, who is based in Vienna, started as a street artist in 2005, according to his website, and eventually started the Rabbit Eye Movement Art Space, a gallery and agency that supports other artists. In an interview with Juxtapoz magazine, Nychos said he was into skeletons as a kid. His father and grandfather were hunters, and he actually had to prepare some of the carcasses (cool, but ew). That got him interested in how all the parts worked, how the bones and guts and everything else worked together.

If you're a visual person it totally affects you. I never saw it as disgusting—rather it shows you how much life is worth and how crazy a body really is.

Interestingly, the act of helping his dad skin a fox when he was 12 (yep, still ew) turned him off to actually becoming a hunter himself, Nychos said. Instead, he took up drawing the innards instead of inspecting real ones. He told Juxtapoz the first thing he remembered wanting to draw from the inside out was Ariel from the Disney film The Little Mermaid, because he was so intrigued by how her fish-like tail would work with the rest of her parts.

It's definitely an amazing and unique way to reimagine both iconic characters and other animals. It started because as a teenager Nychos was bored, he told Juxtapoz. That was where he developed the need for some of his work to be large scale.

I started painting graffiti because when you're 15 you don’t want to sit at home and hold a brush. I’m not a patient persona and I like to get a quick result with the spray can.

Images: Instagram/Nychos (3); Flickr/PhunkandJazz (1)