Laura Chilson, artist of The Commandeer EP cover, and I talk about the album art for The Commandeer, collaboration and other projects. Check out her great artwork at laurachilson.com. Also check out her Esty page as well as her fiancee, Shane Hinkle's leather work Esty page. Enjoy the video!
Transcript
Jeremiah: Hey everybody. I’m with with Laura Chilson today, who did the art for The Commandeer and we’re coming up on the year anniversary of the release so I thought I’d get together with her and sort of talk about it a little bit. I wanted to start out by showing everybody the sketch that I sent you because it looks nothing like what you ended with. Which I’m really grateful for.
So this is what I sent Laura. Ok? It’s like kindergarten stuff right there.
Laura: That makes me feel good about myself that you’re starting out with that.
Jeremiah: It makes me feel good too that I know you and you could send me back this. Can you tell me how you took my idea, that kindergarten sketch and turned it into what ended up being the cover. Did you start anywhere special or did it just come to you?
Laura: I didn’t necessarily star6t anywhere special. I do a lot of commissions for people so for me its just a matter of asking the right questions to people, trying to suss out what their ideas are. On the whole the concept was pretty clear to me and then taking it and envisioning it in my head trying to figure out the different photo references that I could bring together to make it look good. And working to see what you preferred and what you didn’t like. It’s something I’ve developed over a few years now. I’ve been doing commissions professionally since 2009 so I have a lot of that process worked out for myself.
Jeremiah: Looking at your site, you are mainly doing the pencil sketches. What is it about the pencil and sketching rather than paints, inks or another types of forms that are out there? What is it about the pencil for you?
Laura: Well pencils I use are kind of interesting, they’re actually water color pencils so you can add water with a brush or sponge or towel and get the more painty textures which is cool and I like having that versatility. I love the fact that they don’t smudge like a typical pencil, graphites with smudge. Colored pencils don’t so much but I do like be able to make it a little more painty sometimes. My degree is in painting and drawing so I do both. Sketching comes naturally to most people just being able to work with a pencil pens, crayons you know. So that’s what I’m most comfortable with in terms of drafting things and people like different aesthetics. I can do acrylic paints, oil paints but they’re a lot more time consuming and a lot more expensive up from t because of all the materials you need. Paint’s really expensive. Typically you have to work on a bigger scale because its harder to get tiny little details in the paint where as a pencil can be sharpened so its easier to get some of those fine details. Basically, I work with whatever is going to suit the project the best and what I’m comfortable with. The skills that I’ve developed for these different media, watercolor pencils I’ve just used them so much. The skills I’ve developed for them, I know how its going to turn out. I know what its going to look like in the end. So if I think that’s going to suit the project, I’ll try to push somebody that way and I can be confident that its going to come out decent, essentially.
Jeremiah: That’s cool. You site is laurachilson.com right? So everybody can go there and check out all the other sketches that you have.
Laura: Yep! And paintings that I have. I have portraits, people portraits, pet portraits,. I also have some wacky special commissions, different sorts of things.
Jeremiah: Those are the fun ones to look at.
Laura: They are fun because they are all over the place. I really love collaborating with people. I think its so much fun to take people’s ideas and work with them. It helps to keep me motivated and I’m a big believer in collaboration. I like when two people can come together and do something that neither of them could really do by themselves. You know, because I wouldn’t be coming up with all these concepts myself necessarily.
Jeremiah: So, do collaborate with somebody as far as just their idea and then your ideas or do you collaborate with other artists too?
Laura: I haven’t really collaborated with other artists in awhile. Usually its just people that come to me with concepts. I’ve done different web comic-y things the past or graphic novel type of things. Writers collaborate with me and other musicians too actually. I have done some album covers. Generally not with other artists because it’d be kind of like too many cooks in the kitchen and treading on each other’s turfs, stepping on toes. That could be problematic but I’d be open to that for sure.
Jeremiah: Yeah it sounds like it would be tough. I mean its not like two musicians collaborating with each other. Its two styles trying to come together. I could imagine how that would get a little difficult but I was just curious since you were talking about collaboration.
Laura: People do it.
Jeremiah: Yeah if you had that opportunity, I’d be interested to see what the end result would be for sure.
Laura: Yeah absolutely. It’s cool, I’ve seen different illustrators who will do parts of the illustrations and then other people will come in and do other parts or in a lot of cases you’ll have people that do the line work and people doing the coloring if you’re talking about a graphic novel or something. You’ve got people that do the black and white things and a colorist is separate from that. That takes a lot of patience and letting go of your ego. I think that’s great. I would like to try that.
Jeremiah: And speaking of the graphic novels and comic book art, you won a competition at the Snow By Night site. Which is an online graphic novel.
Laura: Yeah, its awesome. Its my favorite web comic and I did a fan art piece for them for their fan art contest. I did end up winning it mostly by bugging everybody on Facebook to vote for me. I think that’s pretty much why I won.
Jeremiah: Well that was the point of the competition right? To new traffic to site.
Laura: I think so yeah. Hopefully they do think I cheated or something.
Jeremiah: Oh no, I mean looking at all of the entries, yours was definitely the best in my opinion. I had no problem voting for you many times. How did you find the Snow By Night graphic novel online? Is it something you’ve know about for awhile or are your friends apart of it?
Laura: Actually I originally found out about them on a webpage banner on another web comic, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, had one of their ads. Just a banner axon the side of their web comic and I like different web comics so I saw the cool artwork they were doing and was like, “ooo, pretty” and I flecked on it. Ever since that day, I’ve been following. They update on Mondays and Wednesdays but they’re on hiatus for a couple weeks because they’re switching artists. I was hooked immediately. Funny thing about them, their writer does a lot of work for Wizards Of The Coast and if you don’t know Wizards, they do D and D, if you’re familiar. So its very nerdy its got a little bit of that element to it. I think he’s a great writer.
Jeremiah: Yeah I’m not familiar but I just found Snow By Night from your competition and so I’m gonna get into that because the first comic, Chapter One, looks really cool and the art is really good. And you said Wizards and Wizards is the other one?
Laura: Wizards Of The Coast. They do Dungeons and Dragons. Their writer is a freelancer, he writes a lot of things for them. Or he has. So its got that element to it. I a big gamer, role player so I like that style.
Jeremiah: Right and that’s another area where you’re artistic. Is with the old style fashion. I think I saw on Facebook that side carrier out of leather. You made that right?
Laura: Actually that was Shane, my fiancee. He’s into the leather work. He’s got a Facebook page now and an Etsy. He’s been doing now maybe 8 to 10 months. So that’s his baby. I’ve been helping him design the things that he tools on it. So if you want like a wolf head on your crazy midlevel bracers. I design the wolf head and he’ll stamp it on there, he’ll tool it. We did an elven styler bracer with ivy creeping up the arms which is cool and there was a belt that went along with it too.
Jeremiah: It’s really cool stuff and its cool that you guys are into that. I might have to check out the Etsy page to see what is up there. But you’re saying he does commissions too?
Laura: He does. He’s got a few things that he has ready-made but most of his stuff are commissions and right now he’s kind of specializing in renaissance fair work and armor. Things like that. He does wallets. belts, dog collars and all sorts of stuff like that.
Jeremiah: Do Anya and Rowan get to be the fashion models for everything?
Laura: Yeah they are for the dog collar absolutely.
Jeremiah: Yeah I’ll have to check that out for sure. So what other projects are you working on right now? Do you have anything in the queue?
Laura: I do. I’ve got a few different commissions. I do engagement and wedding portraits as gifts. A friend of mine contacted me from way back in middle school and she wanted to a picture of her sister and her fiancee so I’m doing a piece. I’ve done a whole string of couples portraits, whether its going to be an engagement present or wedding present from people. I had a mother of the groom order one recently. My table is right over there so I can see. I’m doing cool still life right now. Another commission. And I’m recently trying to do more of my own prints. I’ve always liked fantasy, renaissance medieval stuff. I don’t know if you saw but I took some fun pictures with Rowan, my Siberian boy, just a few weeks ago and there’s one where we’re cuddling. His head’s up against mine. So I used that as a reference and I put myself in this dress and gave myself elf ears and its gonna be nerdy and fun!
Jeremiah: He’s sort on your lap like this right?
Laura: You want to see it:
Jeremiah: Yeah!
Laura: Its in progress. Hold on…
Jeremiah Alright cool
Laura: So this is in progress.
Jeremiah: Oh yeah that is cool
Laura: Work in progress but I really want to take a bunch of references just from my own life because it inspires me having the dogs and being so close with them. It inspires me. I love being able to share that with people. A lot of the photos on Facebook, the dogs are way more popular than I am.
Jeremiah: Isn’t that the way it always is? Same thing with my dogs. Even when I post them on the music page, they always get more likes than if I post one of my songs.
Laura: Oh yeah definitely. They have to earn their keep you know? So we’ll put them to work.
Jeremiah: I like that. So this getting into your own sketching is new for you. You haven’t been doing that so much recently? Its been mostly commissions?
Laura: Yeah mostly commissions because its guaranteed money. when you’re trying to make a living, its hard because you never know if you’re gonna do ten cool prints and you thing they’re the coolest thing in the world but nobody will ever buy them from you and you spent all this time. But I’ve gotten a lot more confident and I’m a good place where commissions are pretty consistent so I want to push myself and take that leap and take more risks and do work that is more personal to me. I can guarantee that I’ll never want to stop doing commissions because, like I said, I love that collaboration. Its not just a money thing. I do really love doing portraits.
Jeremiah: Every time that I play out I can almost guarantee that someone is going to come up and complement The Commandeer art. So someone always comes up and says, “you know, I love the art.” Other artists around here in Phoenix always ask about you so I don’t know if anybody has contacted you but people want to know how they can find you.
Laura: I should just send you a boatload of business cards
Jeremiah: Yes! Do it! I’ll keep them in my wallet because people are always asking about the art for this. I don’t know if you know this but this is the only one that has the full art. All the other ones are just the cardboard and have it here. because these are really expensive to print. But I did this one so that I can give it away at the end of this month. So anybody who wants this can just share any of The Commandeer stuff and just tag me and they can have Laura’s art to put in a frame or do whatever you want with it. This is one of a kind. I had to do this with your art.
Laura: Oh I’m so glad you did. It looks awesome.
Jeremiah: Yeah I’m really happy with the way it turned out. Thank you so much Laura for spending some time with me today talking about The Commandeer and everything else you got going on.
Laura: Thanks so much letting blab
Jeremiah: Oh anytime. Thanks again.