{"id":106755,"date":"2025-08-30T12:53:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T12:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/106755\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T12:53:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T12:53:14","slug":"rubbish-pet-artist-illustrates-childrens-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/106755\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Rubbish’ pet artist illustrates children’s film"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stuart MaisnerBBC News, South East<\/p>\n

\"HooHoo Zoo<\/p>\n

Cinnamon’s Big Adventure is to premiere on YouTube on Sunday<\/p>\n

A pet-portrait artist who draws self-proclaimed “rubbish” pictures has illustrated a new children’s short film.<\/p>\n

Phil Heckels, from Worthing, West Sussex, who began working under the alias Hercule Van Wolfwinkle in 2020, has raised more than \u00a3450,000 for charity.<\/p>\n

He has illustrated Cinnamon’s Big Adventure, the true story about an escaped capybara in Shropshire, which debuts on YouTube on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Mr Heckels said: “My pictures are bad enough when they’re not doing anything, but to see them moving around is a whole other thing.”<\/p>\n

He told BBC Radio Sussex<\/a>: “The list of things happening to me that would have been weird five years ago but now seem normal seems to be growing by the day.<\/p>\n

“This is another pinch-me moment. It’s all very surreal.”<\/p>\n

The escaped capybara sparked an extensive seven-day rodent-hunt near her home at Hoo Zoo and Dinosaur World in Shropshire, in September 2024.<\/p>\n

Her story led to internet memes, a song, merchandise and even a book, illustrated by Mr Heckels.<\/p>\n

He said: “I was surprised to be asked to illustrate the book. But now seeing it brought to life and animated is something else.<\/p>\n

“I can’t wait for everybody to see it and hopefully it will raise a few smiles.”<\/p>\n

\"PhilPhil Heckels<\/p>\n

Phil Heckels, otherwise known as Hercule Van Wolfwinkle, has been creating his pet portraits since 2020<\/p>\n

Mr Heckels will be attending a premiere screening at the zoo on Sunday.<\/p>\n

He added: “It was a great project to be involved in as I spend most of my days drawing people’s pets.<\/p>\n

“Being able to draw a capybara and other weird and wonderful animals was a bit of a change for me.”<\/p>\n

It all began in 2020 when he drew his own dog and shared it on Facebook, offering paid-for commissions as a joke. But genuine requests flooded in.<\/p>\n

The trademark wonky legs and crooked<\/a> eyes have proved popular with pet owners.<\/p>\n

\"PhilPhil Heckels<\/p>\n

Hercule van Wolfwinkle’s pet portraits have raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity<\/p>\n

All the pet portraits are uploaded to Hercule Van Wolkwinkle’s social media pages in return for a discretionary donation to one of his two chosen charities – Turning Tides, a homelessness charity, and StreetVet.<\/p>\n

Mr Heckels, who had his second book of his artwork published in April, has won awards for his fundraising and even embarked on a 24-hour charity “drawathon” event.<\/p>\n

Cinnamon’s Big Adventure is to be played in cinemas nationwide before selected films later this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stuart MaisnerBBC News, South East Hoo Zoo Cinnamon’s Big Adventure is to premiere on YouTube on Sunday A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":["post-106755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}