If the Leonardo in you (da Vinci not di Caprio) is waiting to get out, Dino Ignacio is the man to talk to. He is the genius of image manipulation behind the Webby Award-winning Bert Is Evil. Currently he's studying 3D animation at the Academy of Art, San Francisco.

You've got your crayons and sharpener – here's what else you'll need in that new Hear'Say pencil case
I use Adobe PhotoShop for everything I do. I think it has become the core software for any design project. Even when I'm doing video compositing and 3D animation, I always go back to PhotoShop for matting and texturing. You can look at it as the essential 'pencil' of your digital toolbox. Once I had a concept for Bert is Evil, it took somewhere between 45 minutes to four hours to realise it. I'd be wasting half the time laughing though. I am especially proud of Bert with the KKK – and sorry it's not online any more. Bert has spawned loads of copies but if you think about it, Bert is Evil is a rip-off too, so I can't really take offence. It's definitely a compliment.

Short, sweet and punchy
Comedy on the net needs to be short and sweet, quick to the punch. Nobody wants to stare at a computer screen for too long. Bert is Evil worked as a website because back then (1997) the Internet was much younger and had less expectations. I honestly don't think it would be as funny if somebody tried to pull off a site like this now. I think part of its novelty is the fact that it's old. Maybe it could be turned into a short film. I am currently working on an online animation show about a bunch of really stupid robots. It's at Mongodroids.

From 2D to 3D
3D allows much more creativity but with added headaches. There's a wider range of possibilities to realise ideas but there is still so much to learn to get it right, at least for me. I want to learn the medium for narrative storytelling rather than using it for spinning logos and shampoo commercials. I am very much into Lightwave3D, which I'm learning slowly but surely. I'm also learning Maya but I really suck on that one.

If you only do one thing in life
HTML may seem intimidating but it's really quite simple. I do suggest that people learn it from scratch. Dreamweaver and all the other WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) programs are good but there is no substitute for learning the basics first..