Interview with Rhianna Berthoud

Before heading for Cardiff Animation Festival 2026, I jumped on a Zoom call to get to know local-to-Wales animator, illustrator, and clay-crafter extraordinaire.

Along with the privilege of being on the jury for this year’s Festival, we were graciously given the opportunity to host our first ever Malt Adult out of the country at ArtHole, complete with zine prints from The Printhaus. When selecting the films for the showcase, I not only wanted to paint a picture of what Malt has been doing over the years, I also wanted to add some artists who I thought might be tapping into the festival lineup already, like the impeccable Lizzie Watts who’s latest, Fried! (2025), was slated to play the night before at the first night’s kickoff party, Cardiff Animation Nights (a huge inspiration over the years… and what seems to be the precursor to the fest as a whole).

It would be a crime if I didn’t dig around and find a film by a local animator that fit our ethos. Enter the music video for the RIZTS (listed lovingly online as punk, post-punk, hardcore, math rock, psychedelic rock AND gothic-grunge!) song, Parasite, full of hand-drawn animation, yelling, clay, and colorful video overlays. The perfect amalgamation of feelings lately:

Berthoud’s work is easy to recognize: they also happened to design all of the slick Festival graphics this year. By the time I got excited about the zine interview, I realized… oh geeze, the fest already published one. Not a problem. Time to do more research and make sure I don’t ask the same questions! As an artist who similarly got her start also doing music videos and drawing tons and tons of “fun little guys”, we found a lot in common, and I can’t wait to see what they have in store next.

https://www.rhiannaberthoud.com

Could you give us an intro, Rhianna?

I’m Rhianna Berthoud and I do animation and illustration that uses a lot of analog materials! I like to use clay and do frame animation, and combine it all together to create something that tells a story through both the animation, and also the media that I’m using.

What’s it like being an animator in Cardiff?

It’s pretty great. ‘Cause I am an animator whose animation work is heavily influenced by my illustration practice, I know a lot of people who work in the same way. I’m excited to go to Cardiff Animation Festival because I think it will be fun to meet even more people that mainly do animation, that also explore illustration, and then meet in the middle. Share knowledge.

It’s fun in Cardiff! I have a sort of home studio set up, so I do most of my work at home and scan it all in. Yeah, it’s pretty good!

Right now, what’s your ideal home studio setup-day?

If it was ideal, I think I would wake up early, I’d be ready to go! Everything would be packed up ready - clay, paint, pens. I’d set everything up and have it there all day without having to, like, cook dinner and then move everything off my table so that I can use it. Then I would just do loads and loads of clay animation. I think that would be super fun. It’s always my favourite part to do: the claymation part. The editing takes a while afterwards, but it’s always worth it in the end.

I would have a nice break and go get some doughnuts… it would be good. And I would invite my friends to come along and do it with me as well. Animating alone is sometimes lonely, so I would get some animation friends to come and hang.

What was it like before you moved to Cardiff?

I was in Falmouth for University and then I moved to Cardiff. Falmouth’s a lovely musical town, but I wanted to move to a city: see what it’s like, see the sights of the city.

But before then, at university it was super fun because I studied illustration and my tutors were super encouraging of exploring different things. There were a few animation tutors that were there to help illustrators get into animation. So it was fun discovering my path in animation there.

Doing music videos for local bands. Good times.

As far as music scene stuff and working with musicians: what was it like for Don’t Tell the Dog?

It was so exciting when I got approached for it. It was kind of like, woah!! I’d finished the Mothman, the Man music video and I’d just done the whole rollout for the album (and the RIZTS music video too). Then I went to an art fair and James came to my stall - after that he asked me to come on board for the album. Working with him is really fun because he commissions such a variety of things - doing the merch, the posters, little extra animations. I’ve learned so much doing it all!

How long was the whole process?

I think the fair was probably 6 months before I started creating the first artwork. There was a period of writing, and then I came in from around August to July of the next year… so it was a whole year of creating and having fun! And I’m still making work now - secrets!

What was it like to make the jump to full-time illustrator, animator?
I’ve been doing it for three months now. It was January, yeah, so: month three. It’s still kind of early in the process, but it’s going well so far. I’m keeping very busy and enjoying myself. Cool opportunities are coming out, like this Malt-Adult zine! Making art for a living was definitely my main dream - as it is probably everyone’s dream - to do it. I am very grateful!

What is something that you think is underrated in animation?

More messy lofi stuff; not worrying too much about making it super tight. Sometimes if I’m scanning something in, there’s specks of dust on the paper still. I quite like seeing that when I’m looking at art, and sort of messy edges, and jittery frames that show something is handmade. I think it’s fresh seeing that as well, with all the AI stuff, it’s nice to see something that’s more human, like the fingerprints in clay animation.

If you’re working digitally as well, there’s ways of bringing a personal element to your work, like a handmade brush or adding in imperfections, grime and asymmetry to your characters. It doesn’t have to be like dust. It can be your version of what dust means to you.

The digi-dust. The digi-dust, yeah.

Is there something then that’s overrated in your opinion?

I always find it hard to find things that I don’t like!

People that sort of put down people’s spirits… I do have a bone to pick. People who say that your portfolio should look the same all the way through so that people can digest it easier. Bad take! You gotta be able to have your animations be whatever you want them to be and not let anyone tell you that you need to have a consistent look from project to project. You can try new things and have a good time. Whatever is sustainable for you and your practice!

You have such a nice eye for like, background and editin. Are you pulling from your phone library, etc.?

Pretty much! I started doing it that way, and then for the Parasite music video, that was one of the first times I used a video as the background for an animation. I’ll spend a lot of time out in nature, taking pictures of things - so I’m always finding little things with my antenna. And then I’ll pull it up, whatever kind of nature I need. Trees or, like a watery kind of scene.

Can you remember your earliest interactions with zines, or, if there’s any moment that you had kind of starting out that really lit you up about them?

I think I came to it kind of late because I don’t think I’d ever heard of a zine until I went to university, and then every single person on my course was like: “Zines!” And I was like, What? “What is this zine?” I instantly fell in love - this is amazing! You can just create anything. And it’s a cool way of making a thing exist. I think the first zine that I made was a collaboration zine with a couple of my friends. It was fun to make it super DIY. They are just a super fun, nice excuse to do things with other people.

And then after that, I made the Guide to Crunch zine - and before then, I hadn’t built up a world for my characters to live in. I was illustrating my characters in fun scenarios. Zines helped me to world-build and get all of my ideas out. And then I made a second guide zine. And now I just super-like making fictional worlds for my creatures and putting them in zines. It’s very good!

And then I made a collaboration zine that’s called Game Zine and that was fun because it was something completely different! It’s great creating things together with friends based on shared interests.

Do you have advice for illustrators, artists, animators who would like to get started, but need that final push?

You can make a super simple zine with a piece of paper. And you can just put whatever you want to put in it. You can treat it like a sketchbook - you don’t have to show it to anyone. You can just do it for yourself, and have a little booklet! If you’re stuck with getting started, and don’t feel comfortable showing your zines to everybody at first, you can make your own little personal library of zines and they’ll be so cute.

The theme for this Cardiff Fest is play. You made a very playful poster. You’re great about playing with your practice. The Game Zine! Any game projects?

Did you see the Labyrinthologist game page? I’m making a game with my friend Chris (bonkibot)! He’s also a coding whiz who does a lot of workshops to make games. We did a game jam where you have to make a game in a week! I had never made a game, but my work is very inspired by the videogames I love to play. We did the jam, and we won one of them, which was cool! And then everyone was like, “can you finish the game?” - Yeah, ok!

The first level is pretty much finished now. It’s all hand-drawn animation - I’ve scanned in all the frames for the little guy and then the background is a drawing that you explore. You meet all these little characters and then they follow you around. Have you ever played the game Hylics? They follow you around a bit like that. You’re a little labyrinth guy studying your labyrinth degree, and then at the end you get your degree if you complete it!

What’s next for you then? Playtesting the game, art fairs-!

I am working some more with James and getting ready for lots of fairs in the summer!

I would like to finish illustrating series 2 of my trading card collection. I’ve got a list of artists to collaborate with and do guest cards this time. So I’ll make a bunch of cards and then there’ll be a bunch of other artists’ cards in the packs. I wanna do lots of collaboration stuff this year. That’s what’s on the horizon.

I’m also working on doing a zine that is fully made out of clay. All the text, and everything – called Clay Cave. So it’ll be like exploring a cave with info about all the little cave creatures. I just want to get, you know, stuck into a lot of different things. And another music video this year. I’m projecting out!

I always will end the Q&As with: malt beverage of choice?

Is it like, malted milk..?

Yeah. Or like it’s a, it could be a nasty liquor as well-!

So is it like a hot drink, like a hot chocolate that’s like a malted thing?

One a lot of people like is the stirrable chocolate powder.

Yeah! Maybe I’ll put something in there to make it even tastier.

Yeah, ooh peppermint?

Yeah, peppermint! And I like the vegan spread Lotus. It’s like caramelized biscuit spread. I like that, I’d put that in there.

Thank you Rhianna!

This marks my first time “publishing [online]” a Q&A with an animator. Since Malt Adult #24, I have been doing in-person interviews with local animation artists for our free, printed zines — which have came a long way since I would email a list of questions to animators for issues #1-23. You can dig in the backlog of zines/interviews here.