Fredriksen started making his animal hybrids in late 2012 when he was still a student for pure entertainment.
"Me and a friend were joking about how weird and harmless guinea pigs are, so I started mixing them with other animals just for fun with the Photoshop experience I had. This was right in the exam period, so I needed some pauses from studying. The pictures became quite popular, so I continued making some in 2013. Then I had a break for several years, and in the past years, I've picked up the hobby again, " the artist told Bored Panda.
We asked Fredriksen how he comes up with these unexpected and crazy animal mixes, to which he said: "I don't really have a routine on selecting animals. I usually start by finding an animal photograph that I really like, and then try to figure out what could suit it while looking natural. I follow a bunch of animal accounts on Instagram to get inspiration for different animal types."
Fredriksen said he's a huge fan of mixing cute animals with small birds, but his personal all-time favorite is the Swama―a mix of a swan and a llama, which somehow looks simple and natural.
Over the years, quirky animal hybrids have won Fredriksen over 52,000 Instagram followers. Ironically, what draws people to these mashups the most is how realistic and recognizable they are.
"I think the main reason people like them is that they look somewhat realistic. It's something everyone can understand and appreciate, regardless of their age or the part of the world they're from."
Fredriksen engages his audience in his entertaining hobby by letting them suggest and pick names for the new surreal creatures and most of them are spot on and almost as funny as the pictures.
"At the beginning I named my animals myself. But when posting the pictures on the web, people would almost always write comments with better name suggestions. That gave me the idea to let everyone suggest names and then vote between the best ones. I think it's really fun to see the names people come up with, as they're very creative."
Fredriksen's fans all over the world draw inspiration from his works and it warms his heart and motivates him to keep creating.
"It's always a blast to see that people get inspired by my pictures and make something out of it. There's been drawings, oil paintings, 3D art, and even tattoos, which I think is amazing. There's also been instances of children cutting out animal pictures from magazines and pasting them together to make their own hybrids―that really made my day."
Scrolling through the gallery of new freaky animal species kept us wondering how the artist would react if he saw one of his animal hybrids face-to-face in real life.
"My reaction would depend a lot on what animal I met. There are many of my animals I wish existed, but that's mainly the cute ones. If I saw a Shalcon while swimming, I would freak out," said Fredriksen, and admit it—you would probably freak out, too.
