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Nadia Tolstoy is a Stockholm-based cartoonist who has caught the eye of many on social media. She describes her work as “mildly amusing doodles” that can be “surreal at times and frequently punny.”

The artist has made a series of illustrations called “Surrealians”. She has the talent to mix different things to represent a single word, creating funny and absurd visuals that might make you see words in a new way. Scroll down to dive into Tolstoy’s whimsical world!

More info: Instagram | surrealians.com | twitter.com

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Image credits: surrealians

Bored Panda had a chance to get in touch with Tolstoy again to learn more about her artistic influences, future ideas she’d like to explore in her creative journey, and more.

The artist told us that she has a lot of heroes that inspire her: “From Saul Steinberg, the New Yorker illustrator to the cartoons of Gary Larson and Mark Parisi. I also love illustrator Rokas Aleilunas and the artist René Magritte. So a pretty mixed bag, really.”

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Image credits: surrealians

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Image credits: surrealians

When asked about her favorite doodle, Tolstoy answered that it’s hard to pick one. “I love it when people send me suggestions like my ‘SHOOTING STAR‘ one and I´m so happy with ‘FACE LIFT‘, ‘BELLY LAUGH‘ and ‘LOOKING SHARP‘ because they were published in Readers Digest (US) in October. Also sold ‘HORSE RADISH‘ to the restaurant Horseradish Kitchen + Market in Wiconsin, recently. So I guess it´s a case of ‘Is it doing well?’ Then I love it. I´m so fickle, haha.”

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Image credits: surrealians

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Image credits: surrealians

The artist also animates some of her doodles. We were curious to know more about her animation experiments. “Ah, yes. Animation is hard,” Tolstoy shared. “Or rather, it´s child´s play to get things to move around but it´s hard to make complex, smooth animations. So I don´t, basically. I just can´t spend that much time on a single illustration. But some of them like ‘RE-MORSE‘, ‘FOX TROT‘ and ‘VACUUM‘ really don’t work very well as stills. So I´ve added some movement to them. And even if they´re really simple, basic animations, it gets the job done.”

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Image credits: surrealians

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Image credits: surrealians

Talking about future ideas, the artist would like to get into merch. “It´s time-consuming to set up, though, and I´m a bit of a perfectionist, so it may never happen… Other than that, I´d be really interested in collaborating with other creators on Instagram and also hopefully selling more doodles to various publications. A fun thing to do would be a daily cartoon inspired by whatever holiday is celebrated that day… So here´s a shout-out to publications, potential collaborators and anyone who just wants to have a digital cup of tea. Get in touch!”