- Inspirations include Nickelodeon shows such as Hey Arnold!, Doug and Rugrats, books like Where's Wally? and comedy/situ shows like The Simpsons.
- Owns lots of Simpsons' merch. Drawn to its humour, living and thriving community of Springfield, hub, character interactions. Richly defined world.
- Also loves Jurassic Park. When younger, built the world from Lego but questioned where do the dinosaurs sleep? Eat? Got the cogs turning on world-building and asking questions. Even made a little comic book about this to flesh it out.
- Then Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was released in teen years. Sandbox game. Completely 80s. Little jokes on the surface level. Underneath the surface and looking more into the world and it's details – manual with products from the game, deep sexual humour and jokes that need lived experience and age to understand.
- 2008 Uni of Brighton. Picked the game up again. Immersed myself in the 80s. Final exhibition was an 80s bedroom scene. You had to play my final work on VHS.
- Enjoys attention to detail.
- Ideas perspective. Details. Nothing too crammed together. Nicely spaced out.
- Learned about a company called Line. Popular in Asia. The brief was to create 1000 emojis. 100 a week, 17 hours a day. When designing each emoji I had 600 x 600 pixels to work with. Constraint. Trick is to maximise how much info in that square.
- I was the first to finish and it was the second most read article on 'It's Nice That' when published in that year. Pepsi, even Paul McCartney took notice. Caught onto the trend of emojis at the right time. It's taught me about spatial awareness, every movement meaning something, small changes make a huge difference.
- Crowd scenes are enjoyable to do. Flesh out the details. Fearsome because there is never enough time.
- BT Artbox project. White plaster cast of a phone box. How many characters can I fit onto it? Completely freestyle, somehow pulled it off.
- Pressure brings out the best in me!
- Piece of work for Will Smith. Cuban scene with Will running in the scene. Lots of relevant objects and people including the Cuban flag, classic cars, street musicians. Spaced out so your eye can go around. I draw myself in there too. Few running gags through my work like a Where's Wally? scene. Planning and executing, building worlds.
- Individual characters. People I know, some objects. Some hang out with some celebs – Snoop Dogg.
- Animate simple gifs. I've become more confident in animating static images.
- Worked with Netflix, Apple, Samsung
- Samsung in Taipei – 10 days research and photographing using a Samsung phone and drawing with their pen tool. Press conference. Question & answer session. Animation from my research and visit. Projected onto a building. Orchestra, mayor, translator, pop-up store. It was wild!
- Working with MTV. Dream project stemming from love of 80s music. I wrote my dissertation on MTV. Just had to use their colour chart and a word. Picked dominant colour and then narrative. Chose blue and lazy.
- I had two ideas that I didn't really like. I went back to basics. Back to my love of the 80s and dinosaurs and Jurassic Park. Went back to that classic feeling of nostalgia.
- I wanted to focus on extinction. I really wanted to push my animation skills, technical side of things, new angles.
- Always love to doing things digitally but what would happen in the real world? Collaborating with 3-D artists. Looking at my work in a new context.
- In future would love to do more narrative stuff, TV stuff. I'd love to make a mini golf course.
- I am ambitious and have ideas, but I'm happy to let it take me where it takes me like the emoji project and Taipei Samsung project.
- I know my work will always involve characters and expression.
- Breaking up my colour palette gave me better opportunities and a good social media response. Be brighter, upping the colours and contrast. Comfortable exploring with other colours now. You don't need a set colour palette to represent yourself. Keep exploring.
- The work should be coming from you because you make it. Don't worry about chasing a project.
- I look at art directors, find who they are and what they do, then made a mail out to put something physical on their desk. CV, who I am, a print in a plastic envelope. Ad agencies and just try to get some one's attention.
- It's important to have a sense of self-worth.
- I now sit on the board of the AOI.
- It's a worrying time at the moment but there are a lot of opportunities for us as creatives.
- Learn new skills to broaden your already existing portfolio of skills.
- There are certainly jobs I didn't like. The 1000 emojis in a year was stressful. It made good money and it was the right time. Fallout game paid £7500 but it was a difficult job as it was a set style, which I didn't like working to. The money was worth it.
- You do need to be enjoying this. If I have to keep making artwork that I didn't enjoy, I don't think that I would do this.
- I can now recognise red flags much better in a project.
- Don't be pushed to work in the style of somebody else.
- Illustration 101 – don't do someone else's style. Unless the artist gives their express permission.
- Email me for any more questions.
Reflection of Visiting Lecturer:
While our portfolios are not the same visually and we both work in very different ways, I prefer analog processes and Dan is more immersed in the digital world, I thought that he touched on something very interesting when he mentioned that "every movement means something." I find that this is the case in my own work with abstract expressionism. Every movement is deliberate tells a story and should mean something on the canvas. I may not be working in pixels and to constraints of 600 x 600 pixels but I am working on a similar blank space with materials where my gestures take up real estate. I, too, have to consider where the paint is going and how it interacts in such a space.
Dan is very influenced by the 80s and I listen to a lot of 80s music when creating my canvas paintings. I also like to get lost in worlds and find them very immersive. There is something about escapism from our own reality that is very fascinating to explore and a real core part of being human. To dream and daydream about other places. My own abstract paintings become their own rich worlds, based on music and emotions, away from the reality.
I relate to pressure bringing out the best in me. When I have limited time to do something, I will actually start to think of systems of making and pushing myself in a small window of time.
There was also some really sound advice in regards to researching appropriate people and creating a mail-out to put something physical in front of them and to get yourself known.
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