ToughPigs Art: Dave Hulteen’s Muppet Mashups

Published: January 13, 2020

Dave Hulteen might be the greatest Muppet fan artist out there. We already know that he’s talented, and we’re confident in his deep knowledge and respect for the characters, but what’s most impressive is how he continues to challenge himself to create more and more interesting artwork.

Recently, Dave found a clever way to develop new ideas for his illustrations by matching random characters with random scenarios or art styles. Here’s Dave’s explanation on how the project works:

I wanted to do something different for Inktober, mainly because it’s evident that most people just want to see Muppet fan art from me. But coming up with new and creative ideas on how to draw the Muppets can be difficult because I want it to develop in an organic way. Instead, I had the idea to ask for prompts that I would then combine with a list of Muppets.

The idea was to put each on a piece of paper and draw them from two different bowls and combine them. I won’t lie, I definitely cherry picked, but it was my creative exercise, so sue me. I also didn’t want to go for the standard “power house” picks, and made sure that I had at least half female characters. I got some great submissions through Instagram and tossed a few of my own that I really wanted to do (the vintage whiskey ad was something I was excited for). The end result turned out to be one of the most fun and creative exercises I’ve ever done and look forward to doing it again!

Sounds fascinating! Thanks again to Dave Hulteen for sharing his work with us, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy all this great art below! (And if you do, be sure to follow Dave on Instagram and Twitter!)

Abby Cadabby + Pennywise the Clown