Illustration Toolbox

I was fortunate enough to grab Michael Heald the creator and loving owner of Fully Illustrated, a multi-award winning creative agency, in-between projects to sit him down for a minute to answer a few questions about his illustration work. Some of Michael’s work can be seen on Joy Stick Generals, Trenches iPhone game, Voodoo Controllers and, of course, his new iPhone game Super Turbo Action Pig.

Interview

Brian: How did you get started illustrating on a professional level?

Michael: It all started during my last year at university when I was lucky enough to be tutored by one of Cosgrove Hall’s ex-animators/illustrators, Pete Beard. Pete was someone that I had great respect for as an illustrator, so this was nothing short of having an idol to be taught by. At this stage I could only dream of ever being as good as Pete, so being tutored by him was a big deal. One thing he did say as I was leaving university was that becoming a trade illustrator was no easy task, no matter how good you are, and if you wanted to succeed you have to work very, very hard.

I accepted that my first job after leaving university couldn’t be that of an illustrator as I just didn’t have the experience, so I would have to work toward this goal over the coming years.

The first job I got after leaving university was as a junior designer, working within print and branding. While this wasn’t my ideal job I loved every minute of it as I was learning something new almost every day. After a couple months within this job, an opportunity arose to illustrate a character mascot for a new piece of software. I knew that this was my first opportunity to make a mark for myself, so I grabbed it with both hands. On top of the fact that this was a great opportunity, this character had to be a cartoon wizard! And to anyone that knows me, drawing a cartoon wizard is just about cool as it gets! I have a bit of a love for all things fantasy, dragons, monsters etc, so this was going to be cool!

Things started to move from this job onwards, as a couple more illustration projects appeared over the coming months and I soon began to realise that this really was the path I wanted to take.

As my aspirations were growing at this stage and I really wanted to pursue a career more focused in illustration, I started to casually look around at other jobs.

I saw a job advert for a position as an illustrator within an e-learning agency, I immediately knew that I had to have that job! But after reading the job description which had a prerequisite of three years experience as an illustrator, I suddenly realised that my chances of getting it were near to none!

I was faced with the typical Catch-22 situation, to get the job you needed experience, but you need a job to get the experience. I just didn’t know where to turn. Luckily my girlfriend at the time (who is now my wife funnily enough) had many words of encouragement and she spurred me to put together a kick-ass illustration portfolio and send it to them regardless! So with that in mind I set to work collating all my best personal illustrations that I had worked on over the previous couple of years.

All I will say here was that the gods must have been on my side, as after two arduous interviews, and being up against quite a number of other illustrators, I was overjoyed to be offered the position!

From here I spent the next five years illustrating hundreds of characters, in numerous different styles, for a mixture of e-learning games. I can honestly say that I enjoyed this job more than any other. It was during this five-year period that I defined my personal style which I use to this day (albeit in a style that I adapt as time and styles change). All the way through my illustration career I had always wanted a style of my own and now I finally had it.

How would you describe your style?

Ooooh that’s a tough one. How would I describe my style? I guess if I had to define my style I’d say it’s clean, bold, comical and playfully menacing ;)

What tools do you use and what is your process?

My toolset is fairly standard as far as digital illustration goes these days, so I have the usual suspects within my armoury, but most notably Illustrator and Photoshop. In truth though, I pretty much only use Illustrator as it fits my personal style.

My process is painfully simple and slightly traditional. I start out with old school pencil and paper (I have a Wacom Cintiq too, but have never gelled with sketching on it), and then scan the sketch in. Once I have the character in illustrator, I start to work on tracing the basic shapes with the pen tool, ensuring that the Bezier curves follow my exact lines. Once all the basic shapes are complete I then work on the basic colour rendering. With the block colours complete and my tonal range set, I then start to bring in gradients, shadows and depth. To finish the illustration I then tweak the line thicknesses until I am happy.

Who or what inspires you most at the moment?

Hmmm, that’s another tough one. What I usually do is look around at all manner of different visual things to spike my inspiration. I have a gigantic collection of movie trailers, video game art, other artist’s illustrations, paintings, comic strips, fantasy art, concept art, you name it, which all reside inside one huge organised folder. So when I need inspiration I open this folder and flick through all the wonderful things I’ve collected. This folder is kept alive all the time by continually adding new images that I find when I’m browsing the web. So for example, when I visit Illustration Toolbox, I quite often save some of the images that really catch my eye. This folder has been growing for the past 10 years, so you can imagine the sheer size of this baby. I also print off some of these illustrations and stick them around my desk so that my eyes always have something exciting to look at, as let’s face it; a dull working environment is far from inspirational!

I also ensure that I am surrounded by work that is far superior to my own, that way I can never become complacent. As long as I am surrounded by work that I aspire to, I can never rest on my laurels.

But just to throw some thanks out to my heroes, here’s some of my all time favourite (mixed styled) illustrators:

• Alvin Lee
• Frank Frazetta (First and foremost!)
• Guy McKinley
• John Howe
• Michael Gagne
• Timo Vihola
• Yanick Dusseault

What are you working on right now?

The thing that has me most excited at the moment is my latest venture, The Joystick Generals, my small independent games company. My development partner (Chris Wilson) and I set out six months ago to create our very own iPhone game, as it’s something we’ve always wanted to do. Our first game Super Turbo Action Pig, has been the love of my life for quite some time now.

I’ve always loved working on video games for other companies, but to be creating one for myself has been something else entirely. To know that there are literally no boundaries and no limitations, is quite simply the greatest creative feeling ever.

I’ve had a blast creating Super Turbo Action Pig, as the game is comically bonkers. The story is about a heroic jet-packed pig, fighting against the evil, sausage obsessed, Butcher Bill. Creating the characters, game at, promotional materials, high-definition trailer, and full website, has been literally a dream come true. When you work on other companies projects there are naturally budgetary restrictions, so there is always a limit to how far you can push things, but when you’re creating something for yourself, you can add as much finesse and detail as your heart desires. I’ve loved every minute of it.

I’ve even gone as far as to create a crazy, downloadable, cut-out and make, cardboard desktop toy of the heroic pig himself ;) You can download one for yourself if you like. That part turned out to be even more fun than I had anticipated, as we’ve received loads of photographs sent in by people showing all the crazy places they’ve put their cutout pigs!

Any last words of advice for anyone just starting out as an illustrator?

I think the only thing I would say is to follow your heart, never give up, and accept the fact that this path isn’t going to be an easy one. And lastly, always surround yourself with work that inspires you, so that you have something to strive towards.

Thanks for the interview Illustration Toolbox!! I hope you don’t have too many people falling asleep :)

Michael, thank you for such a wonderful interview and I’d better not catch any of you sleeping in class.

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