Steve Scott

Posted by Fabio 2 November 2009

We got hold of London based Illustrator Steve Scott to ask him a few questions and see what he is up to these days.

Where and how did you spend your childhood?
I traveled up and down the UK in different abodes and different Counties. When I was 16 my parents emigrated to Australia. After a 26 hours in the air and landing in Sydney and a ten hour time difference I was taken to a barbeque. My response was to stand in the corner and cry.

Where do you currently live?
North London in a leafy burb.

How did your admiration for illustration start?
Reading comics as a kid. I used to love reading Tin Tin and getting 2000ad, which had fantastic range of artists. For years I wanted to be a comics artist. The other thing was discovering the work of people like Martin Sharp and a lot of the psychedelic pop art of the 60s.

How did you approach the step from illustration to animation?
I drew the characters for a video clip for my then band ‘Telemetry Orchestra’. An animator who was in Canada was helping out and I thought “I can do that” and I did!

Tell us about the video you did for French electro band Birdy Nam Nam, how did that come around?
I had previously worked with Will Sweeny on some titles for a music show, and it worked really well. He got approached by the band to make a video and asked me to help out. We have some similar tastes in sci-fi, old comics and its been great working with this very gifted Illustrator.

Colour is a major part of your work, how does colour influence you?
Mood . . .character…. I often struggle with it trying to get the look right as two colours next to each other immediately imply an emotional response. Its so easy to get lost in the simplicity of changing colours on a computer.

The ultimate collaboration, who would it be with and why?
I would love to collaborate with a great writer to create either an animation or a strip. I love the work of Jeff Vandermeer, who writes really baroque, surreal sci-fi, or David Mitchell, Joe Hill, Murakami . . . great writers . . .

Tell us about your latest project
At the moment I’m drawing some Argentinian pop art heads for a campaign, working with Parasol Island on a really nice animation project and trying to develop a kids book with a writer.

Which exciting things lay for you in the future?
I’d like to get an animated series off the ground . . . theres a few things afoot at the moment and at some point  would love to make an animated film with some mates of mine…

What is your favorite time of the day?
The first few seconds after I’ve tasted my first tea for the day.

www.stevescott.com.au