JON BOAM.

Last week I decided to get in contact with the highly talented Jon Boam and asked him a few questions about his work and personal life that I was intrigued to know more about. He was kind enough to reply very quickly and in great detail. It was dead nice to know that an Illustrator in the "real world" was so down to earth and friendly. Thanks again Jon. Below is his response to my email with my questions included.


1. How did you first get into illustration?

I studied graphic art & design many years ago but became disenchanted with my own creativity and the prospect of becoming an artist/illustrator seemed very bleak. The harsh reality of living and working in the real world took hold & I did lots of different jobs for money.

In my spare time I filled sketch books and piles of paper with drawings allowing my imagination to run free - I had loads of of original artworks I never showed anyone

anyway while backpacking in Asia about 4 years ago I decided I wanted to share my drawings with people via the Internet.

my first illustration commission came from the Science Council via Chris Gray the founder/creative manager of "TOY" who found my portfolio on the Behance network.

2. Other then illustrating what stuff do you do like doing?

I love getting back to nature and walking for days on end in the mountains & woodlands, more recently my favourite thing is just hanging out & having fun with my 2 year old daughter and being a dad, I watch films when I can.

3. What really inspires you when coming up with ideas for your work, and do ideas come reasonably easy or do you have to rack your brain for hours on end?

sometime ideas do come easily other times it's an uphill struggle - ideas that exist in my mind have to make the successful transition onto paper. some ideas just can't exist in the outside world.

4. Its evident that you have a clear, confident working method and technique when producing your work, did you develop this "style" or did it come naturally?

my "style" "visual language" has developed in a fairly natural way over time - lots of experimentation and drawing.

5. A lot of your work seems to include comic book/sci-fi esq imagery. These are all cool themes to be illustrating giving a lot for the imagination to play with. Is this what attracts you to them?

I love imagining things - sci-fi/fantasy/dreamland are comfortable places my mind continues to go, but I would like to do more things based in "reality" too. The next logical step for me is comics and children's books I'm just juggling my time to try and make a proper comic at the moment.

6. When making illustrations for something like nobrow, whats the amount of time you typically take to complete them?

"Colour me Menagerie" took 2 - 3 weeks as did my sub for "A Graphic Cosmogony" NB2 & NB5 subs took 2 - 4 days this is very rough and including all the other stuff I do - daddy day care and my night job as a care worker.

mostly I spend longer on the drawing and less time on the computer colouring things in but it's hard to say how long things take since I tend to start and stop a lot.

7. Do you prefer to work on your own or in a studio with other artists around?

It would be lovely to be part of a communal artists studio - the times I have been fortunate enough to work in the company of other artists & designers I have always got good work vibes but for practical money reasons I work from home which is nice too and both have there pros & cons.

8. Whats your opinion on the art industry at the moment? Is now a good time to be an illustrator?

I think for all the time and love and skill you put into an illustration you will be disheartened by the low pay that illustration work offers, chasing people for money is a chore as is working out taxes. Don't do it for money do it for love!, you will most probably have to work in another job to pay your bills and eat.

9. Last but not least, what advice would you give to aspiring designers/illustrators?

I still have to work in a job I don't particularly enjoy to pay my rent & finding time for drawing/illustration work is a constant juggling act but my passion and drive carry me through. so yeah I would say if you are passionate enough about it you will find a way to do it and overcome the many obstacles life throws at you.

Kris I hope these answers can be of some help to you, good luck with everything

Jon.

If you like what you (which you should) see check out his work here.

THINGS THAT I HAVE LEARNED.

What motivates me : 

Unemployment - I think its the thought of not having a job that can pay the bills really pushes me forward and striving for a career that I can put everything into it. I can't imagine myself sat in an office on the eighth floor, mon-fri, 9-5 so I think that alone makes me determined to push forward to do what I love. Thats the most important thing to me.

Things that I have learned : 

Fail More - I've come to realise that its okay to mess up from time to time and learn from your mistakes. Fail, fail and fail some more. For me personally when I come to finishing a project and producing a "slick" final outcome I seem to tighten up and completely. After changing ideas multiple times and re-doing sketches or paintings I seem to subconsciously progress or just seem more happy with my outcomes.

Get a new pair of eyes - When engrossed in work in a dingily lite flat on my own I seem to become unaware of how things are starting to turn out. It's always a good idea to get a fresh set of eyes looking at your work as my eyes become stale after so long. Asking others for criticism helps me work a lot better as you sometimes miss the obvious and see things from a different point of view. I find this hard to do myself if I've been staring at my own work all day on my own.

MIKE GIANT.

Absolute inspiration and idol.


Neighbors: Mike Giant (Trailer) from Agency Charlie on Vimeo.

DANIEL DANGER.PART 2.

A massive influence for my current work concerning the children's illustration book is Daniel Danger as I've mentioned before. I wanted to ideally screen print my finished pieces and found a set of very helpful photomographs and video showing how Danger makes his textured and luminous backgrounds. I presumed it was all done digitally but take a look at the vid at the bottom and you'll see differently.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuSs_LUgBqI&feature=player_embedded

DANIEL DANGER.

Recently stumbled across Daniel Danger on a blogg and pretty much fell in love with him and his work. His work seems to represent a love for graphic novels, comics and video games taking the dark subject matter and drawing styles and throwing them into his own masterpieces. They work really well as individual pieces as well as part of short narratives. I'm a massive fan of printing one outline layer on top of a background built up of tone creating depth quite simply. I've done some previous work like this before when screen printing and really enjoyed the working process.I presume he uses pen and ink and then subsequently screen printed it himself but recently it seems people are managing to create hand drawn looking work digitally and making a good job of it. I'd rather stick to using wet media. After checking his work out I think I might go back to basics and dig out my old nib pen and have a go scribbling with it again and see how that works out.

KEVIN DART.

 After talking to a fellow designer about the amazingly talented Matthew Lyons (who I've posted about many times before) he recommended that I checked out Kevin Dart. After doing a little research into Dart I've come to find that he is in fact a huge influence of Lyons and its quite evident in his work. I've chosen a few of my favorite pieces from his site but most are from a series of images from Sym-Bionic Titan which have been done insanely well and work for the 2008 Bejing Olympics. They all generally mind me of highly polished concept art for sci-fi/thriller esq films but when they look better then the film does. His work is an absolute inspiration and really spurred me to experiment more with compositions and lighting.

 

 This is the final for the Bejing Olympics by Dart and Lukasz Pazera can be seen here!

OLLY MOSS.

British poster artist Olly Moss share my stupidly huge geeky love for Star Wars and shows it here in a trio of  insanely well thought about posters he created for collectible art house Mondo. The posters made up of various vehicles, landscapes and characters form the original trilogy cleverly make up well know faces from the film.  The subtle colour use complements themes in each  of the film incredibly well and the slight textured shapes add a real feel of the process used and give it tons of character. If I had the money I'd definitely snatch these up without thinking twice.