#practising illustrators

[ugglestheprofessional]

PRACTISING ILLUSTRATORS

Gino Marks 

Gino “Genie” Marks is a fellow Ravensbourne graduate as is now a practising illustrator and graphic designer. He does little-illustrated comics and has done editorial posters and double-page spreads for magazines. We’ve worked together a number of times on friend’s projects and he is a close friend of mine. That being said he is incredibly successful and I fully plan to ride on his coattails when he opens up his own studio next year.

Genie has promised me time and time again he will teach me the secrets of Adobe Illustrator and has already shown me countless helpful tricks on Photoshop that has influenced my work. Me and Genie have spoken at great lengths about our work and what illustration and graphics mean to us, he is one of the main reasons I chose to do this at undergrad. His use of colour is one of the most beautiful features of his work and the use of expression in his cartoons really brings his work to life for me. Gino is someone I hope to work with closely next year and I know he will help me improve my work and I going to try to help him as much as I can with the opening of his studio next year.

Gino has also used a 3D printer for his work before and said he will show me how. His work has been featured in a student film we both worked on last year. He created a whole children's book about space for the film “Amishtranaut”. You know your friends with Gino when he makes you a pixel drawing of something you like. For my 20th birthday, he drew me Baymax from Big Hero 6. For his birthday I returned the favour with a drawing of him as his favourite anime character.

[ugglestheprofessional]

Practising Illustrators

I’ve been in contact with two local illustrators from Hastings and one from London and I’ve been pestering them for their hot take on the world of illustration and how they navigate it.

Ben Wright

Ben Wright is a Hastings illustrator who sells personalized portraits and has done animation work for the BBC. He spoke to me at length about how he organizes his Instagram to make it look uniform, so people know exactly what they are getting when they approach him for a commission and how he tries to create variations with expression, stance and style when it comes to his work. He also showed me how to upload animations onto Instagram and what the file sizes should be.  

Ben creates hilarious little comics and was telling me how to keep them clean and concise, so you can get the joke across cleanly. I think most importantly though Ben gave me advice on how to have fun with illustration. Ben has another job on the side, so it isn’t his main source of income which gives him the freedom to keep experimenting and to do his own work without fear of clients. He understands that freelance illustration isn’t what I want to do but was really awesome at assuring me that illustration can be a part of my life without it becoming my life. That it can be a fun hobby rather than the do or die crutch of my career.  

Most of my interactions with Ben were verbal so to prove he’s not just someone I stalk online I asked if we could take a selfie for authentication's sake. Also because selfies are fun. 

Find Ben mostly on his wonderful instagram here.