The story of Cuatro

If you know me, or follow me online, there is a good chance that you have seen a little, pink rectangle character. This article will go over how my character ‘Cuatro’ came to be.

Back in 2015, I wanted to do everything. I wanted to be a writer, an artist, a salesman, a game designer, a podcaster, an inventor, an academic, etc. etc. I was an 18-year-old with no real concept of time, which I think is great.

As part of this desire to put each finger in a pie, I started a web comic called ‘San & Cuatro’.

I wanted to create something which showed me improving, becoming better each iteration. Each and every comic, my plan was to engage with the idea of ‘how can I make this better’.

The name San & Cuatro came from the two main characters. San (3 in Japanese, hence a triangle), and Cuatro (4 in Spanish, hence a rectangle).

The first comic was drawn on paper, and then traced using a really bad drawing tablet. It was suffering trying to get it to work properly.

I wanted to release the comic at least once a week, as such I wanted characters that were easy to draw, and recognisable. At the time, I remember watching a video about Mickey Mouse being 3 circles from all angles, and wanted to have something similar.

The dynamic of the characters was that San was serious, and that Cuatro was more carefree. I think I knew that a straight man was quite useful to have for the dynamic.

I could not help but be meta early on. At the end of the day, a lot of what appealed to me with the comic was the ability to experiment and play. You can see that I am trying different types of backgrounds out. First it was drawn by me, then it was me using tones, then famous images, and in the comic below, my own photos.

As you may have noticed, the first 4 chapters were all released in the first half of December, 2015. I remember being quite harsh on myself, thinking that I was not working hard enough, or improving fast enough. It is weird how mean you can be to yourself and not realise it.

Below I started experimenting with how to remove the characters from the background.

Eventually colours were introduced to the comic, and I thought that it was important that these stayed consistent for the most part.

The character’s palettes were based off sweets I used to have all of the time as a kid in South Africa, fizzers!

An important side tangent:

In 2016 I wrote a dystopian novel called Haze. I wrote most of it during my lunch breaks in A-levels. I would go to the computer lab and just crack away at it piece by piece each day.

When I finished the book, I wanted to get a cover made for it that felt right. The way the commissioning worked was I went to Tumblr, searched the ‘commission’ tag, and filtered by most recent. I commissioned two artists at the same time, to see which had the better interpretation. Neither matched what I wanted. Finally, I landed on Scorci.

Scorci is a digital artist, who likes to keep a lot of their real life a secret. They are into cute things, and have created some popular original characters like Chelsi. A lot of their work is NSFW.

I thought the cover he made for Haze was great. Haze was published on the 22nd of March 2016. I was 19 years old, and annoyed that I could not publish it 2 months earlier when I was 18!

After commissioning Scorci, he invited me into his close circle of friends. Through this, I started to talking to artists more consistently, which embedded me in lots of art discourse. Also lots of conversations about thighs and video games.

I highly appreciate having been a part of this art world. I feel like I learnt a lot, and it changed me a bunch. Some changes were for the better, maybe some for the worse. I did start to compare my work to others a lot more, which I think was more harmful than good. This was a common occurrence in those circles for many creators.

Though to be honest, I always felt like there was something missing for me there. Some may call it pretentiousness, but I really liked the art side of art, as in the reasoning. The thought process. The process in general. A lot of that art world was, and is, interested in aesthetics and engagement, which I really find less appealing.

Many of the themes in San & Cuatro were just ideas that interested me. I found that through drawing them, and trying to think of some kind of punchline, it allowed me to think about the topic more. A lot of San & Cuatro was self-discovery.

A reccurring theme is that of ‘positive nihilism’ which was, and is, something very important to me. The idea that nothing has inherent meaning or value, but that we as people instil value, I find to be wonderful. That value is different to every person is important. Some people struggle to understand this, thinking that I am saying ‘everything is meaningless, nothing matters’ as some type of pessimism. Rather, I view it as ‘the world is what you make of it’, and that power is given, and therefore can be taken away too.

I was also interested in the hypocrisy of a lot of human nature and values. People say they have beliefs which define their core values, a literal building block of who they are. However, in a moment, this can change.

Hypocrisy, more broadly, I find to be fascinating. I too am a hypocritical creature, like everyone else. I’m just saying I like trying to understand it.

I was also interested in spiritual experiences. Moments where a truth starts rushing in, and you wake up wondering if that really was the truth, or just your brain convincing you that your delusions were understandable.

I was also into classic thought experiments and concepts, even if I did not fully understand them at the time.

I was also enjoying playing with different styles dependant on emotion and other factors.

Mainly, it was a way for me to talk about myself. How I was feeling, how I interacted with the world. My own frustrations and confusions. In a way, it was a manifestation of the two parts of myself fighting against each other.

With my want to constantly improve the comic, I feel that I made a wrong turn. I started copying my other artist friends, and added a lot of highlights and shadows to the characters, coloured lines, etc. I feel that, in retrospect, the comic looked a lot better without them.

One of my favourite things to do back then was ask my art friends to make guest comics for my now defunct website (NihilismProductions.com — RIP).

Here is Nicommunism’s work which I absolutely adore. They are SO talented.

I think it is very interesting that a lot of people see Cuatro as a robot. I guess the rectangular head is a big part of it. They aren’t meant to be, but it really doesn’t matter.

Nico pretty much nailed my social commentary.

It was great creating along side so many artists who were very technically skilled. Each person had their own flavour, and different things they did well. Nico’s art is pure vibes.

Scorci also gave San & Cuatro comics a try. He made this back before I started doing colour. I really like that he embraced the outline and photo backgrounds which I did back then.

It is also fun to see how some of our interests like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure were captured as well.

Below is some art by EthanSmithy — I cannot find links to the artists who created a lot of this art back in 2015/2016. Many of my old accounts from back then are gone too.

I really like that people saw my comics as people thinking and pondering questions, and embraced this is their own interpretations.

Their fashion senses are quite good in these. Also giving San nipples does make me realise that they were naked the whole time…

A drawing by HomestarSB9 — Their Twitter account, like mine, was suspended.

My old friend Andi’s work. I met her, like many people, through Scorci.

There is a bunch more that exists, but I’ll stop here as to not make a majority of the article a gallery!

When the comic stopped, so did my drawing of San. However, I kept doodling Cuatro. I really like how simple her design is. When I had to, or felt the compulsion to draw something, Cuatro came to mind.

Especially after seeing so many people draw her, I realised how much of the way I drew her was ‘me’. It was my strokes, how I would curve her eyes, or do the rectangle. It was a signature. It reminds me of DADA rhetoric. That in our unconscious belting out, we accidentally capture our soul with our unplanned grunts and coughs.

Cuatro existed alongside me in all of my creative endeavours. Whether it be painting:

Or wood burning:

Or costume creation:

I think it is great that a piece of my past has travelled along with me like this. It feels like a little connection back to my angsty early adult years.

In my academic life, they have made an appearance as well.

They appeared in my sustainable development goals video for my BA Education Studies degree.

Again for the same degree, they appeared in my ‘Modular Education Institutions (MEI)’ video.

Cuatro also appeared in my MA Experience Design work, in my video which went over the history of DADA and how their ethos affected their works. This project is largely what caused my current experimental film trajectory.

They have appeared in my ‘Bread & Roses’ video, where I made a piece about the attendance of a ‘Drink and Draw’ night by Louise Rabey.

Now, during my PhD, they have appeared in a few of my university teaching materials, as well as during workshops, in art guestbooks, and on random walls.

This has all been very rewarding to look over. I have been thinking a lot in this past year about how the results from one’s work aren’t nearly as apparent in the moment.

I’m very happy that I made San & Cuatro, and the rabbit holes I’ve tripped into as a result.