Illustration for issue 397 of weekly news magazine, ‘Le Cool’.

Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you came about doing the work you do?

I live in London and work from my bedroom using a laptop and a Wacom. I got into illustration through friends who asked me to do flyers for their parties and gigs. I got a pretty good response and loved doing the work, so kept going. At the beginning I treated it as a hobby, just doing it for the love and freebie gig tickets.

Then gradually I got people asking me to do work in exchange for money so that was a bonus! I studied Product Design at university and tried to get a job as a designer, but that didn’t happen, which I’m now pretty glad about.

What’s your typical process when working on an illustration?

Starting normally involves making a list of ideas. I do keep a sketchbook, but it’s mostly words rather than pictures. Once I have the idea sorted, I may make a very rough sketch and then open a new file in Illustrator and get going. I do my sketching in Illustrator I guess, playing with shapes, moving arms and legs, trying to get the composition right, playing with colours, and hopefully end up with something either me or the client or both are happy with.

Have you always been interested in reduced forms and a graphic look or is it something that’s developed naturally? 

I guess it was there from the beginning, although it’s been cleaned up and has become more refined over the years.

Some of your illustrations like your ‘Le Cool’ piece have a hint of dark humour to them. Is this something you like to add yourself or is it just something that crops up in commissions now and then?

Sometimes I get a client who wants to get humour into their commission, but most of the time it’s just me adding it. I can’t really do serious. The ‘Le Cool’ piece was my own doing. It was the first thing I thought of when asked to draw something about London.

We love the characters in your work, are you interested in comics or doing more character-based projects in the future? 

Comics are something I want to get into this year, as well as animation. I’m also working on some pretty ‘character-heavy’ personal work at the moment… so I guess the answer’s yes!

Do you have any interesting projects planned for 2012?

I’m taking over the walls of a cafe in Dalston called ‘Tina, We Salute You’ in February. They’ve said I can do whatever I want, which is exciting but also pretty daunting.

© Stephen Cheetham, 2012

In his own words, Pintachan says, ”Pablo runs Pintachan from the north of Spain. He loves liquorice, playing with Lego, watching old sci-fi movies and collecting children’s books.”

“My workspace it’s nothing special, just a Mac and a bunch of books. So, I’ve attached a photo of my childhood. It’s a bit weird but in a certain way it’s what I wish to transmit with illustration—  childhood, naivety, happiness …”

© Pintachan, 2012

I usually sketch my ideas on random papers or in sketchbooks, the trouble starts when I try to look for them, usually without much luck. Depending on the type of work I’m doing, I usually draw lines with either indian ink or markers, and then I add colour with Photoshop. 

If I’m going for handmade only, my favorite medium is acrylic on plywood, the colour always gets super bright, just the way I like it! And, if I like the design enough, I can always screen print it! It’s so much hard work but so much fun to do, I love it!

© Marie ERR, 2011

“I take a pretty light-hearted approach to making illustrations. I am not a very serious person— I think it’s important to have fun with whatever I’m working on. I love using colour, texture, and patterns to make pictures that appeal to the eyes. I work almost exclusively with traditional media, usually some combination of gouache, acrylic, inks, and collaged tissue paper.”

“Today I am inspired by funny animals, kids’ game shows, and the relationship between the bizarre/fantastical and everyday life.”

© Kaley McKean, 2011

We were eager to find out more about how they work as a collaborative pair and how they’re pushing Brosmind as an all-inclusive brand.

Having studied art separately, did you actively try and develop a cohesive style or has your work always been similar to one another?

We have been a creative couple since our childhood. When we were kids, we spent all day making comics, building vehicles for our action figures and creating our own movies with a domestic camcorder. 

Juan is only three years older than me (Alejandro) so we have the same background and influences, we think in the same way and share the same kind of ideas. Having said that, it’s true that there were some slight differences between our drawing styles, but when we started our studio we naturally developed the actual Brosmind style.

How does your process as a duo differ from how you’ve worked previously?

Now is easier for us. We can quickly explain an idea to each other and be sure that he is going to understand it perfectly. The cool thing about being brothers is that we can be totally sincere in our criticism or have really big arguments and still be friends. That helps, for sure, to take our work to a higher level than before.

Is all the work produced as Brosmind totally collaborative or do you sometimes allocate individual parts of a project to one another?

We develop all the ideas in common and also develop the pencilled drawing together. When we decide that the pencil stage is finished, Juan does the ink and Alejandro adds the color on the computer.

As well as your work, you get a lot of positive attention as yourselves as artists. Is this something you’ve always thought would be part of the branding of Brosmind, or is it something that’s happened naturally because of people’s interest in you?

We would love being only artists, but for the moment  it’s easier to live from commercial work. For the moment, we’ve just reached a balance between commercial and personal work that makes us feel really comfortable.

Would you recommend working as a team to other artists out there?

Each person is different. For us, it’s great to work together, but our relationship is so special that it would be really difficult to have anybody else in the studio. We also know really talented artists who work alone and also other studios, which create amazing things being a big team.

Continuing from your venture into other products, such as Brosmind Army and Brosmind City, can we expect to see any further expansion of the Brosmind universe in the near future?

Of course. We have two great projects!

We got invited to do the Main titles for the OFFF Festival in Barcelona 2012. And we’ll be working together with Upper First, and that’s going to be big! We are really excite about this project : ) 

We”ll be presenting them on May 2012, so stay tuned!

And, probably on the same dates, we’ll launch an amazing personal project, but unfortunately for the moment we can’t say WHAT’S INSIDE?, so stay tuned!

© Brosmind Studio, 2011.

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“I created nearly all the artwork you see in the game (with the exception of the graphic design and death cards elements). It was a lot of work, but it was the best kind of work and it’s so exciting to see it all brought together and to be able to play it now. Working with the Preloaded crew is one of the best experiences of my career so far, so much work went into making this and they’ve done an amazing job in my opinion.”

“My line-based work is all hand drawn and inked on paper. To ink, I currently use a Pentel brush pen. It’s an extremely convenient tool, as good as most decent brushes with all the convenience of a pen and you don’t really have to look after it too much. You can get a massive variety of line qualities with it and I find it fun to use.

Although sometimes, if you’re like me and hold your pens ridiculously close to the nib, you will end up with ink all over your fingers and there’ve been a few occasions where I’ve unwittingly smeared grubby finger prints on a picture after spending a long time meticulously inking it.”

“I scan my lines, refine and colour them digitally in Photoshop which is the only program I use. I use an A6 Wacom Bamboo for colouring and occasionally redrawing bits of the line work that I messed up in the original.”

“For my flatter, more shape-based stuff, I work solely in Photoshop. I’ll often sketch and compose the image in thumbnail form on paper as I find it a million times easier to see what’s wrong with something and work out the basics in a small drawing on a real piece of paper. I’ll then scan that, knock the opacity way down so I can just see it as a guideline and then work digitally on top of it. I used to use the polygon lasso a lot to create block shapes, but I prefer now to manually draw out shapes with a slightly wobbly-round-the-edges brush I made and carve away at them until they’re what I want.

Even if I’m making straightforward shapes, this lends a hand drawn slightly ‘off’ quality that distracts from its digital nature. I’ll often erase chunks from a block of colour and scribble on top of them with the same brush, until there are only tiny specks of the background showing through, which again distracts from the digital truth and suggests something that’s printed.”

© Luke Pearson, 2011.

For Tim Bierbaum, quick, unplanned drawings are part of his creative process, although you could hardly call many of his detailed, humorous drawings ‘doodles’. He tells us more.

“In addition to illustration, I work on a lot of films, commercials, and design work (posted here). I like to have a lot of these different projects going on at once so, if the inspiration for one thing starts to drop, I can move over to another with a fresh perspective.

As a result, I’ve created many projects for myself that can fit into tiny pockets of down time. This sketchbook is one of those projects: the drawings are mostly done during a meeting, while I’m on the phone, eating lunch, or when I take a quick break from the computer. If I have a couple of minutes to kill, rather than opening Facebook, I pick up a pen and just start sketching.” 

“Most of the content isn’t thought out; I just start drawing and see where it leads me. Or, I sit for a moment with a pen in my hand and see what images come to mind. Sometimes, a picture comes up on my screensaver and I start to copy it. Whatever it is I’m drawing, I’m trying to capture a specific mood or emotion, I’m not trying to create some sort of cryptic symbolism or something.” 

“I usually draw with either Micron pens or a Pilot G2 Mini. The G2 has a nice line but smudges very easily, which is annoying. Most of the time I don’t pencil before inking.”

“I’ve attached a photo of my workspace. I have no chair at the moment so I’ve been sitting on the arm of the sofa, which sort of sucks.”

© Tim Bierbaum, 2011. 

As you can tell by the title, ‘Nature Calendar 2012′ runs with the theme of ‘nature’, with 12 artists from around the world interpreting the month, which they were given. The illustrations range from the more literal takes on the times of the year, to the more abstract and decorative, but are all  beautifully designed. I particularly like the mixture of the bright and creamy colours in ‘February’.

The featured artists are: Bjoern Rune Lie (No), Vincent Mathy (Be), Mike Perry (US), Anton Weflö (Swe), Markus Oakley (UK), Human Empire (De), Adrian Johnson (UK), Merijn Hos (NL), Sergio Membrillas (Es), Karin Rönmark (Swe), Nan Na Hvass/Sofie Hannibal (Dk) and Adam Highton/Yule Bringer (UK).

© Human Empire, 2011.

“Left to my own devices my work would probably consist of scribbles, wood and dead things in forests… although I’m dubious as to whether I’d get anywhere commercially,  most of my work tends to spark from little exciting bursts of thought that I’ll convince myself needs to be realized, I think that drives me to make work.”

“It’s been about a year since I started working on the computer, coloring-in really, mainly because it’s easier to adjust things. I hope that my illustrations have a common underlying trait other than the ‘style’. I work in ink pen, coloring pencils, mainly scan and edit in the computer; although I feel I need to step away from that a bit or find a better way of hiding the Photoshop look.” 

“The picture I include, although not a studio/workspace per se,  is a good place to go when I need to leave behind some of that grown-up conditioning and adopt a more playful feeling in my brain box.”

© Phil Hall, 2011.

I’m an illustrator/cartoonist and I mainly draw with brush & ink. I try to keep my brush lines light and minimalistic with plenty of variation in line weight, density and dryness. For lettering and more static comics I sometimes use tiny pen nibs.

Every now and then I draw with pencils or directly in Photoshop/Illustrator to practice and expand my range. My major influences at this point at Nicolas Nemiri, Chris Ware, Jason, Aubrey Beardsley, Seth, Pierre Bonnard, Daniel Clowes, Raymond Queneau, Christophe Blain, Alfred Jarry and many others.

After finishing my inks I scan the b&w pieces and color them digitally. I’m pretty anal about coloring and I can often spend the whole day picking and mixing two spot colors, redoing everything a thousand times and trying to find the right balance between linework and colors. I prefer gentle, muted shades that compliment brush lines with a soft dreamlike ambiance.

For illustrations I usually do several quick & loose sketches to figure out composition and overall look, then pencil it very lightly, often limiting myself to just overall shapes and forms. I find that brush inking comes out far more dynamic and charming when the underlying sketch is less detailed. Of course it’s much easier to screw up with this approach, but that’s the price you pay for trying a sketchy, effortless look.

As for comics my process varies from story to story and page to page. Most of the time I start with a general idea, shape it into a page/number of pages and write dialogue separately. The text goes through a lot of changes and tweaks up to the inking stage, usually losing 90% of the drivel I write initially.

In short there’s plenty of improvisation and I end up redrawing entire panels and pages pretty often if I’m not happy with timing, dialogue or visual rhythm.

© Roman Muradov, 2011.