Nate’s work is striking in its strong use of colour, quirky character style and humour. Nate also works under his own name in a slightly different style, which can be found here.

Nate grew up exploring San Francisco’s diverse streets on his skateboard where he acquired an appreciation for imagery through skateboarding culture at a young age. ‘I also had a learning disability that made reading difficult so I gravitated towards imagery because it made more sense to me.

Imagery transcended language barriers so I thought of it as a language everyone spoke. I initially touched on professional illustration in college when I traded illustrations with a snowboard company for snowboards, clothes and snowboarding passes. I didn’t think of it as a viable career path until years later’.

‘I create my work in a variety of ways. Sometimes I paint with acrylics, draw with Sharpie markers, ball point pens, a Wacom tablet, paint with India ink, create textures with water color or photocopy machines, etc.. but basically what I am trying to do is create a library of modular pieces I can later put into the computer and rearrange the size, composition, color and so on. I really like organic textures and loose, free flowing lines but as an illustrator with quick turn around times I need to be able to make quick changes and easily incorporate client feedback, so I mix all these really organic elements in a way that is easy to modify on the computer’

Nate has given us some insight into the process he goes through when carrying out his freelance illustration work:

• Phone/email client for specifics and creative direction
• Brainstorm on a park bench or a coffee shop and create pencil roughs
• Show client the roughs via a web page
• Client gives feedback
• Incorporate the feedback into the final illustration
• Deliver via flipdrive.com

© Nate Williams, 2009

Nate plans to get into more surface pattern design as well as licensing in the future: ‘I am just learning about this part of the industry’.

See more of his work and updates on Flickr.

MoonApe, Follow me on Twitter!

Empire – Total War for PC Gamer – Painter and Photoshop:

When asked how he got into the illustration he now does, he explained that drawing was always a passion since childhood, preferring much more to play around on his own than to listen to a teacher. In this way, Michael ended up teaching himself, never studying art or design.

‘No matter if it was a crayon or a chunk of clay back then or some new 3d software like nowadays, diving into it and trying to find out the mechanism behind it is one of the most exciting parts in the creative process‘.

Medieval 2 Kingdoms Artwork – Photoshop only:

‘Freya’ – Painter X and Photoshop CS3:

Michael tries to avoid approaching each piece in the same way before drawing so that he doesn’t fall into the trap of a becoming a painting facility, repeating the same style and theme again and again. ‘I like the idea of the renaissance, where the artist would often be an inventor, a scientist and a craftsman‘. Michael therefore likes to experiment with his techniques, both digitally and with traditional media, switching between techniques.

ⓒ Michael Kutsche, 2009

As well as working on Andrew Stanton’s new film, Michael has just finished working as a character designer on Tim Burton’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (2010) and plans to continue working as a designer in the film industry. ‘There’s also several plans for personal projects, one of them is a gallery exhibition with my traditional paintings, as well as an animation-related project‘.

Good luck, Michael!

Follow me on Twitter! Please comment and Stumble or Digg.