Interviews

A Very Important Date - Thumbnail A Very Important Date by nicetomeetyou

Mr Voodoo Rabbit is late for his very important date.But he’s got a bottle and a pocket watch, and an awesome monocle, so he’ll probably be ok.

Four colours (including white base coat)




A Very Important Date rundown! with nicetomeetyou by DuncanBoxie

A Very Important Date was the clear winner of our Down The Rabbit Hole competition. As soon as we saw this design get loaded we knew it was going to be a huge contender…we were most ceratinly, not wrong!

1. What were you thinking when you first started the design?
Basically I just got a new set of Faber-Castell technical pens. These are kinda pricey but refillable, and they’re really great to work with. I was experimenting with drawing in ink with them and turning the drawings into vector artwork. I started on this piece not really meaning to enter, but just to use the “Down The Rabbit Hole” brief as a starting point for something fun. I finished it and realised that I had managed to stay within the brief, and decided to enter it after all.

2. How long did it take you to complete your piece?

This piece took about four hours to draw in ink and one to scan and do the colouring in Illustrator.

3. Did any other artwork inspire you to create this?

I didn’t get inspiration for this piece from anything that immediately comes to mind, but I originally planned to do a portrait of Lewis Carrol (the author of Alice In Wonderland) with all the major characters from the books morphing out of his hair in the style of Arthur Rackham, who illustrated one of the early editions of the books.

4. Do you think this design reflects your state of mind from when it
was created?

I suppose that everything someone creates is influenced in some way by their state of mind at the time they make it, and this is no different. I’d say the original ink drawing is more indicative of my state of mind than the finished, coloured version. I find that my work which starts out as a physical drawing has more personality than stuff which is purely digital.

5. Is this your normal style or an experiment?

I only started working as a professional designer at the end of 2008 and have been working at getting a strong illustration portfolio going since then. I’m still developing my style, so pretty much everything I do at the moment is an experiment.

6. Were you aiming for such a macabre version of the Wonderland bunny?

Not really. I think the colours I used make the design seem a bit darker and meaner. The colour choice came right at the end of the process of making it – if you see the original drawing it looks a lot friendlier. He was originally going to be white.

7. If you could change anything in this design what would it be?

I think I’d make the linework slightly less complex if I were able to redo it. Leave a little more flat colour and maybe print some noise on top to give it a more textured, worn look. But I am happy with how it turned out.

8. What kind of person do you see wearing this design?

I have absolutely no idea how to answer that. Pirates and ninjas?

9. If you could pick any artist to recreate this piece for you who would it be?

It would be cool to see how Niark1 would approach doing a version of this image. He’s a French illustrator and street artist who does a lot of graphics for clothing. He uses some similar, half-symmetrical compostions to my bunny (in a totally different style of course) and it would be cool to see his interpretation of it. Or Jeremy Fish. He’s an awesome American pop-surrealist painter who does these great cartoony paintings on boards. I’d like to see him do a painting based on it.

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