You’ve been illustrating for a fair while now, is it something you always knew you wanted to do for a living, or was it just something you found yourself doing?

I went to art college with the aspiration to be an Illustrator, but I really didn’t consider art as a career until I was 17. Originally I was planning on pursuing biochemistry & horticulture, & was studying towards that. I was studying art just for fun. But the realisation grew on me that I wasn’t really enjoying studying the sciences any more & as I spent all my time drawing, art college beckoned.

After college I pretty much started immediately working on getting my portfolio together & trying to get commissions, though it took a while to get regular work.

You have a very recognizable style — some of the guys here at SixCrayons have described it as a vectorized eboy style — how would you describe it yourself?

Drawing based, retro tinged, detailed character filled landscapes inspired by contemporary culture kind of fits I think. I often get mentioned as being pixel art because of the isometric perspective of lots of my work, even though it’s all vector based.

I think it’s important to indulge your personal interests in your work & create your own unique voice, as that is what will set you apart from everyone else.

Your work is seen across a whole range of industries. Do you remember who your first paying client was and what the job spec was?

My first published paying commission for an editorial illustration for the women’s erotic magazine For Women. It was for a short fiction story about a woman having an erotic encounter with the spirit of the Cerne Abbas Giant (the chalk giant in Dorset)! Things could only get better after that.

But I’ve always made money from my art. While at school I’d paint rock & heavy metal designs on peoples leather jackets. And at college & after I graduated I would do murals for various venues. So I was used to the idea I could actually make money from what I did.

For your latest book, “Where’s Stig”, were you approached by the BBC or was it your idea?

I have worked on & off for years for Top Gear magazine. Last year the the Top Gear team asked me to create “an unrealistic cartoon simulation” of the Top Gear studio for the Big Book of Top Gear 2009. When I completed that, it got them thinking that we could expand the style into a whole book, so the idea of Where’s Stig? was born.

I was immediately interested in the concept & the challenge of creating such a book as there’s such a wealth of visual material from the show.

It’s been a challenging & creatively rewarding project, & great to solely concentrate on one huge project for so long. It’s in the shops now.

When you were younger were you as good as us at finding all the Wallys, and do you think you’d be even better having completed this book?

Actually I never owned a Where’s Wally? book until I started working on Where’s Stig? Thought I’d better buy a copy to see what it was about.

You seem to be at the pinnacle of your career right now.  Where do you see your work taking you in the next 10 years?

Further books are already on the cards. I also want to do more large scale installations as I enjoy the challenge of working at a large size. My work being vector based it lends it’s self to interactive & motion graphics, & I’m increasingly being asked to work in this area. A long term aim to to work in film & animation when I find the time. But really anything that challenges me creatively & enables my work to be seen in new mediums.

Thanks again Rod for the interview and good luck with your new book. Finally, congratulations on your recent election as chairman of the AOI! As head honcho, what is the best advice you can give to a young illustrator looking to further their professional career?

Thanks. I feel greatly honoured to be elected as the new Chairman of the AOI, a hugely important role for the Association and for British illustration.

First off, get out there and get your work seen by as many people as possible. You should never be afraid to show people your work. You maybe the best designer/illustrator in the world, but if no one sees your work, you won’t get commissioned

Perseverance. It can take quite some time to get your creative career really established.

I’d recommend joining the UK Association of Illustrators (AOI).  They’re constantly campaigning to protect all illustrator’s rights, and if you need advice on pricing commissions, contracts, promotion, etc, it really pays to get help from the experts.

Maintain control over your Copyright in your Illustrations. There are very few occasions that clients need to own the Copyright in your work. Your body of work is your livelihood, and you should be entitled to the financial benefits of your talent and hard work.

Check out more of Rod’s work and follow him on Twitter.

Website » rodhunt.com

Blog »   rodhunt.blogspot.com

Twitter »   twitter.com/rodhuntdraws

If you haven’t heard of chi.mp before it basically gives you a free personal domain to bring together, promote, and connect your digital life – all in one place. It includes Twitter and Facebook integration (in addition to other social services) allowing you to send friends or contacts to one place to get all the updates and necessary information on you. chi.mp is also an OpenID provider, which is nice.

I was fortunate enough to get to speak to Rob Farrow, VP of Marketing and Global Brand Development, to answer a few questions.

There seems to be a fair bit of interest in chi.mp at the moment, could you just explain very briefly what chi.mp is so that people who haven’t come across it before kind of know what its about?

Chi.mp is a platform that allows you to create your personal social hub on a domain that you own and control. It is about you being able to create, share, connect and collect all the elements that define who you are online. Think of it as your personal portal to “you” on the web.

So where abouts is the chi.mp team based?

Out team is split between Honolulu Hawaii (HQ) and Solana Beach California.

The growth in social networks is far from slowing down, what would you say is the USP that helps differentiate chi.mp from the likes of Tumblr for example?

The single most obvious differentiator with chi.mp over any other service is the domain. We not only provide our owners with a very robust platform we give them their own personal domain (for free) that they own and control. Unlike many of the other social sites out there that make you a subset of their domains and own all the content/contacts within your account, chi.mp has taken a different approach and put the ownership and control back in the hands of the site owners.

I mention Tumblr as it was the first service that came to mind that appears similar to chi.mp, do you class the likes of Tumblr and Friendfeed as competitors? If not who do you consider to be your main competition?

We really have no “direct” competitors for chi.mp since the vision and service offerings are larger than any one company currently out there. We are always in competition with a variety of services for the attention and loyalties of our owners, this is the driving force behind the desire to create a better product every day. One of the biggest potential “threats” that we see on the horizon is the introduction of new TLD’s into the market place by ICANN sometime late next year. That threat also makes the assumption that of the limited amount of domains released someone will enter the social space with one.

At the moment you’re in beta, how many people do you have using it?

Several thousand.

Whats the response been like so far to the beta release?

So far very positive, our philosophy towards owner rights has been extremely well received. We have had some great input on how we can improve our service offerings, our interface and our descriptions of services.

All the services you’re aggregating, whether its Facebook, Twitter or Flickr all have their own unique audience and more importantly characteristics. What has been the hardest aspect of bringing these together?

The technical challenges and resource demands to integrate them have been the most challenging to date. For specifics our tech team could better help you there.

What do you think have been the biggest UX challenges you’ve had to face?

The biggest challenges have come in the form of communication more specifically how do we communicate all the features to our owners in a clear and concise manner, engage them and at the same time not bog them down. Its a challenge to determine at what point something becomes intuitive or confusing.

Visually chi.mp is very distinctive. What was the thinking behind the design?

We were a different kind of company from the start. We had different values, services and opportunities for our owners. The design was the cumulative process of input from our initial alpha testers and our design team.

Looking at the chi.mp team there doesn’t appear to be one sole person responsible for the user experience, however you seem to have a strong community helping you. How big a part have UX processes played in the development so far, and what research methods do you employ to help affect change?

So far we have used lots of testing, aggressively engaged our community for their input and have worked with a design team as opposed to a designer. It was important to have a continuity in design extending from marketing and brand experience all the way through the UX.

Apart from the option to purchase your .mp domain are there other plans to monetise chi.mp?

Yes…we have several domain centric and service centric models queued up. NONE will affect the current ownership arrangement (free base service) and NONE involve scraping our owners’ content or contacts.

Thanks a lot for taking the time out to answer my questions, its really appreciated. Just one last question to finish, what are the long term plans for chi.mp?

Grow and become as socially relevant for our owners so that we can provide them with long lasting, relevant value.

Since the interview Rob has moved on from chi.mp and is now working as a Marketing Consultant. For more on Rob you can view his Linkedin profile.

So what got you into illustration in the first place pushy parents or natural talent?

Hi thanks for having this interview with me it’s great! Well I always started off teaching myself, since I was about 5years old.. Through the years I become attracted to cartoons and ideas started to flow through my head, I became really creative and had a HUGE imagination. So since my younger years I’ve been sketching all the time and drawing pretty much anything..

What’s your main source of inspiration?

I love Deviantart.com, I discovered it almost 2 years ago and have pretty much made it my life.. It’s what really brought out my abilities! When I am lacking motivation I always search DA for cool pics to boost the mind.

How would you describe the Patrick Brown style?

Haha I like the sound of that! Um I don’t really know, maybe “serious/cartoon/modern” style! I really like to keep things looking sharp and clean in my pics, even in my grungiest, dirtiest or bloodiest pics I’ve always kept things neat! I think it gives it a modern look!

What software do you use everyday for your design and illustration?

I use Photoshop CS3 for pretty much everything, I use Illustrator for logo design. And my graphics tablet is my best mate!

How much is a pint of milk?

Haha random question! Not sure about pints, here in Aussie we don’t use that term but for a litre of milk would cost about $2..

If you could work on any one project in the world what would it be?

It would definitely be for the cover art of the next Grand Theft Auto game by Rockstar Games!

If you could work with any designer/illustrator in the world who would they be?

I’d love to work with Humberto Ramos, he’s my biggest inspiration! He’s a legend! I love his style and vibe!

Which of your pieces is your favourite and why?

AW THAT’S A HARD ONE! Uh I’d probably have to say my GTA LEGENDS III picture, where all the lead characters of GTA are partying in the Malibu club of Vice City. I had so much fun making that one, listening the the 80s music from the GTA: Vice City soundtrack, it was just so enjoyable to look back on all the great memories of each game!

Being Australian how did you feel about losing the ashes so badly? (not that we care too much here at SixCrayons) ;)

Haha I barely know what Ashes is haha, I only know because I work in an office full of cricket fans haha! To tell the truth I hate sports.. It bores the crap out of me haha!

What are you working on currently and what are your plans for the future?

Currently I’m working on a HUGE Grand Theft Auto IV tribute! I’m focusing just on GTA IV and putting all the characters in one big picture, like a montage! I’ve got about 20 characters crammed in and a few action scenes from certain missions as well!

My plans for the future are to keep doing what I love. I really REALLY want to be the best I can possibly be!

I’d love to work for a gaming company such as.. ROCKSTAR GAMES haha! Really I would, But anything similar would be a dream! Maybe creating concepts for character design or cover art.. Anything like that would be awesome! Wish me luck, I hope to go far!

Well thanks again Patrick us guys here at SixCrayons cannot understand why Rockstar haven’t already hired you! All the best for the future mate.

Thanx again for the interview! I look forward to seeing how things go! You rock! -Pat

To check out more of Patricks work go see his Deviant Art page and stare in awe!