This feature is an excerpt from the ALLSHIPS Podcast: 2nd Transmission with Robbie Trevino. For the full conversation, be sure to subscribe to the podcast here.

What was your first kind of understanding of creative expression? Is there a revalatory moment in your life that you can recall?

I can't think of a moment. I know historically, my mother has done a really good job of sort of cataloging my career as an artist. And it started really young.

I want to say around two or three years old, you know, I've been drawing for as long as I can remember. I don't remember like a time when I specifically remember starting to draw, I was always doing things either visually with art, or I know when I was a kid, I also used to build a lot of things with either Legos or Lincoln logs or mega blocks.

So whether, whether it was by hand, like in a sculptural sense or if it was like, literally with some sort of medium such as pen and paper or a crayons and paint, I was always drawing. I can't really recall the exact moment that I was like, I'm a creative person. I just kind of was always doing it.

What are some of the inputs that allow you to create such like stunning outputs? Your style seems to be like a mix of fantasy and science fiction and futurism.

It's definitely a mixed bag. It's a lot of things, but I would say there's the obvious influences, like anime, like comics, manga kind of influence, right? I get compared a lot to like Mobius or like Salvador Dali, you know, surrealist people, but also, people that use a lot of line work, a lot of cell shading, a lot of simple fill colors. I used to build Gundam kits for fun as well. I love my giant giant Japanese robots.

I think one thing that will come up a lot in my work is something I've coined "Flesh Tech," it's like a weird fleshy, robotic, cybernetic style. I think that aesthetic comes from having grown up in the Detroit area and Michigan. I live in Seattle currently, but I'm from the Midwest.

So in the Detroit area, it is very post-industrial, and there is all this leftover equipment. What is interesting is you see all this nature overtaking the skeletal remains of man made things, and this is an interesting visual relationship. It's like man mixing with nature, and I think that aesthetic has found its way into my visual vocabulary.

One thing I noticed is that you were accompanying some of your work with narrative and story. How does writing make its way into your pieces and can you speak to that process?

This style is very much "me" and not client work. This comes from a personal project, an IP that I've created called Numinous. In a nutshell, Numinous is this story about this traveler that sort of crash landed on this theoretical plane of existence. I don't want to to call it a planet. It's it's like a plane of existence rather, because of planet you can escape from. And the thing about the traveler existing in this plane of existence is that there's no going back. It eventually became the story about sort of accepting where you were always meant to be.

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your world with us Robbie. What else is coming up for you?

I am releasing my first Nifty Gateway drop and I will be collaborating with DeadMau5, who did the score for my drop. So mark your calendars for April 18th. Anyone who likes surreal, strange art and enjoys some beautifully scored, operatic, acoustic piano type music- this one is for you.

Definitely check out the drop because in a nutshell, it's the book project that I've been working on and I'm just really excited.

I'm doing things with the project I've wanted to do for a while, and I haven't been able to share it with anybody in this kind of way. I didn't think I was going to be able to do it with the music attached, so check it out if you can.

Other than that, you know, just find me on the socials. I'll be around. If you have any questions, actually feel free to DM me on Twitter, Instagram- I'm very open to conversation. I definitely enjoy collaborating. That's what I love about this space.