If you’ve wandered into the trippy, fungus-filled world of “Common Side Effects” and wondered, “Who came up with these faces?” you can direct your admiration straight to Chase Trotto and Andrés Escobedo. These two aren’t just the unsung heroes of Adult Swim’s latest visual fever dream — they’re the ones splashing all those uncanny, hilarious, occasionally unnerving character designs into your brain. Seriously, if you’ve ever caught yourself freeze-framing to count hairs in Frances’ bun or tried to sketch Marshall’s wild, big head after one too many espressos, you’re not alone.
Meet the Masters: Trotto & Escobedo
Let’s start with the basics — who are these creative co-conspirators? Chase Trotto, American by birth but apparently part mushroom by artistic temperament, got his start at the legendary animation house Titmouse. If you’ve noticed that “Common Side Effects” sometimes gives off faint “Midnight Gospel” energy, that’s not an accident. Trotto worked on that show’s storyboards, and he never leaves home without a pouch of blue Col-Erase pencils.
Then there’s Andrés Escobedo, who brings a wild riot of visual flair from his years at Nickelodeon Latinoamérica. Before he dived into adult animation, he splashed color all over indie game cut-scenes. You’ll rarely catch him without his Wacom stylus, muttering about Photoshop’s “Mixer Brush” like it’s a lost holy artifact. Together, they joined the “Common Side Effects” crew in the preproduction haze of early 2023. Supervising art director Janelle Price lured them on board after an Inktober sketch-off — they both posted competing psychedelic fungi on the same day, and somehow that duel birthed a partnership.
Design Philosophy: Exaggeration with a Pulse of Realism
Now, what happens when you hand two artists a show about social anxiety, psychedelic drugs, and Big Pharma shenanigans? In short: you get silhouette-centric madness sprinkled with truly odd but believable details.
Trotto and Escobedo have rules. They exaggerate the outlines, always. They anchor every character with at least one realistic detail. Also, color changes always sync with a character’s mood. Even the writers keep an eye on this as scripts shift and arcs blossom. So, exaggeration? Absolutely, but not in a way that severs ties with reality. “You can bend Marshall’s elbow like half-melted taffy,” Escobedo told a podcast last spring, “but the elbow bone still matters.”
Our Core Trio: Crafted for Trouble
Marshall Cuso (Dave King)
Let’s talk about Marshall, our reluctant, high-minded mycologist. Trotto knew Marshall needed to look like he smelled faintly of cold brew and unwashed fleece — a guy too wrapped up in nature to check a mirror.
- His head? A whopping 12% larger than a typical male character sheet. That visual cue says, “Hey everybody, massive ego here!”
- His hands? Shrunk down by 5%. The guy’s constantly reaching for knowledge, wisdom, or maybe just another bagel. He rarely grabs what he wants.
- His wardrobe? Forest green and always a little rumpled. Fun fact: Trotto eyed actual russula mushroom caps for inspiration.
For that extra hit of realness, those tired eye bags are straight off actor Dave King’s real Zoom calls, rotoscoped over when deadlines got tight.
Frances Applewhite (Emily Pendergast)
You need a grounding force in all this strange, and Frances is that gal. She’s the everywoman, dropped into corporate misadventure and barely keeping her bun together — literally.
- Escobedo gave her a symmetrical face and soft cheeks to anchor our empathy.
- That signature tidy bun? It loosens every two episodes. Check those fly-aways — each one marks an episode where Frances cracks a little more under corporate pressure.
Her wardrobe rocks calm pastels, but watch out during hallucination sequences. Suddenly those serene tones pop with electric neons. The color transition is more than just eye candy — it’s a quick way to show the shift from corporate grind to full-on psychedelic meltdown.
Rick Kruger (Mike Judge)
Every good story needs a villain, or at least a questionable CEO. Enter Rick Kruger — his very silhouette screams “watch your wallet.”
- His torso narrows into pipe-cleaner limbs, a not-so-subtle nod to a syringe (thanks for the idea, Trotto).
- Those eyebrows? Arched like Gothic doorways, forever skeptical.
- He wears expensive blues, but they’re just a little off from true business navy. Why? Because nothing about Rick is ever quite right.
Fringe benefit: Mike Judge wanted to keep a goatee, so Escobedo hid it in three frames mid-blink during episode 8. Challenge accepted!
Techniques: Shaking Up Animation’s Magic Bag
“Common Side Effects” rides the line between grounded and gonzo. Trotto and Escobedo play with line weight: thick outlines when characters get overwhelmed, feather-light strokes for calm moments. You can see the contrast especially in scenes where the hallucinations hit. The show avoids typical psychedelic clichés. So, while squash-and-stretch exists — hello, dream sequences — most movement sticks to a more grounded twelve-frame pose arc.
Faces get extra TLC. Every emotion gets two passes. Pass one is loose, warped, and wild. Pass two adds shadow and zygomatic muscle overlays, so tears really track with cheekbones.
And then we have process. It goes like this:
- Quick iPad thumbnails from Escobedo.
- Blue-pencil newsprint sketches from Trotto.
- Friday Slack reviews where artists, writers, and colorists spill their guts — and their cold brews — all over digital sketch files.
- Clean-up lands in Toon Boom Harmony, and final reviews happen over Saturday morning donuts with showrunners Steve Hely and Joe Bennett.
Supporting Cast: Sidekicks with Depth
Don’t overlook the support squad. Every background character gets a story packed into their shape.
- Dr. Aruna Nayak, shaped after a portabello — wide-brimmed coat sleeves, earthy, reserved.
- Kyle “Derail” Dupree, the resident skater, has one pant leg longer than the other. He’s a perpetual human speed bump.
- Young Marshall in flashbacks rocks a bigger head but softer features, telegraphing innocence right out of the gate.
Nothing here happens by accident. Need proof? Storyboard artist Naya Ikeda once admitted in an Instagram Q&A that she “borrowed” Marshall’s hand-downsizing trick for a background character cameo in episode 6.
Details for the Eagle-Eyed (and a Few Easter Eggs)
Let’s dish about the fandom. Reddit’s already obsessed with Frances’ bun. There are whole threads in r/AdultSwim mapping every new fly-away, with GIFs looping a hundred thousand times. And, of course, the internet exploded when Marshall’s pupils blew up to dinner-plate size in the series premiere — three million loops on X/Twitter in a week.
Fans track the color palette as if they’re reading mood rings. Colorist Mateo Sanz even calls Frances’ main palette “ethical lilac”—the color of a conscience under siege.
But the biggest in-joke? Rick’s cufflinks. Trotto and Escobedo fought over whether they should glint. Now, they only glint in scenes when Rick’s lying. Not that viewers missed it — reddit sleuths mapped every single glint by episode four.
When Art and Chaos Collide
Listen, not everything came easy. Hallucination scenes especially pushed the team. Line art got dropped entirely in some shots, letting silhouettes and bold blobs of color do the heavy trippy lifting. And then there’s the whole “Murky Monday” debacle — episode 4’s underground sequence pushed the anatomy beyond comfort zones because of low lighting. For a week, everyone on the art team sent Slack messages sheepishly signed “Lost in the Dark.”
But those risks paid off. The show’s promo poster — Marshall facing a mountain of pulsing wild mushrooms — nabbed gold at the 2024 Clio Entertainment Awards. And both designers made Variety’s “10 Animators to Watch” for 2025. Not too shabby for a series that started with a pair of dueling Inktober illustrations and a bunch of coffee-stained reference sheets.
What’s Next? Follow the Spores
As “Common Side Effects” gained traction, the buzz kept building. Everyone’s waiting for Adult Swim to reveal a second season. Meanwhile, both designers hint at even wilder designs and more intentional visual storytelling in interviews. Emily Pendergast, the voice of Frances, recently teased on Collider that the new season would “challenge the bun physics.” (We can’t wait.)
So, next time you’re swept into another weird, wonderful thing on “Common Side Effects,” tip your hat to Chase Trotto and Andrés Escobedo. They’re the crazy geniuses who made fungal paranoia, existential dread, and business casual look this good. And if you spot a glinting cufflink or a stray lock of hair, you know you’re seeing their magic at full throttle. Keep watching the shapes — the real weirdness is in the details.
