Interview with the 2nd place winner of Derby 198
This weekend we had the pleasure of seeing TWO prolific Woot artists get their first prints! First, we'll be interviewing OdysseyRoc.
Shirt.Woot Stats? (first derby / shirts bought / shirts printed)
112 (Japan) / 31 / 1. One derby print, no dailies.
What are your tools of choice?
Macbook Pro,
Photoshop CS3, and a really old
Wacom Intuous 2.
What is your typical process for going about a design?
I work 100% digitally. So, when the new theme is announced on Thursdays, I brainstorm for a little bit, then sit down and start doodling in Photoshop. I usually have a general idea for what I want to do, and it all starts to take shape as I start sketching out the idea. It helps to have other artists to get honest feedback from, too.
For "Pocketless Universe", the idea hit me while I was watching TV, at like 9:00pm on Friday. I had a wildly unpopular design from the India derby, that I wanted to rework, because I really thought the concept worked. I spent maybe 2 hours tweaking part of my old art, and painting in the space scene. It helps to have a lot of tricks that you've used a thousand times, to speed through something like this.
What design or art experience do you have outside the derby?
I've been doing art as a job since around 1990. I started out in high school, airbrushing t-shirts, so I could have a little spending money. After high school, I went to school to learn graphic design, slaved away at a small print shop, and eventually broke into comics.
Which artists or designers inspire you?
Most of my inspiration are either cartoonists or graffiti writers. Growing up, the mad magazine artists like Don Martin and Duck Edwing were my biggest art heroes. In high school, I started to get into the graffiti scene and discovered Vaughn Bode and Robert Williams,also LA graffiti writers like Hex, Slick and Mear. These days I look at as much different stuff as possible, and try to incorporate stuff that I think will work with my style.
Would you like to do art/design full-time? If so, what is your dream job?
I color comics for a living. I feel like I'm already doing my dream job.
Any plans to ever sell your designs using a print-to-order shop like SpreadShirt or CafePress?
I have a bunch of stuff up at
RedBubble.
What advice do you have for new derby artists?
Stick around, keep on submitting, and listen to every bit of advice that you can get. If you dedicate yourself to doing the derby every week and doing your best every week, you'll eventually find success.
Do you have a website or portfolio you'd like people to see?
You can follow me at
Facebook.
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