Ladies and Males it's that time again...
So I figured since I did that post on Horesbites it'd be neat to do a post on Derek Deal, who is also a graphic artist, because I have his interview with AMP Magazine on hand. To be honest, I have it sitting on the arm of my recliner right now! Score!
I love Derek Deal. That being said, maybe I should back that up with a reason or two. Derek does a lot of grunge art that is very detailed. In almost all of Derek's work texture is the characteristic that practically jumps off the pages! Even though this sounds kind of gross, in a poster for A Whilhelm Scream that Derek did a brain, eyes, and part of a brain stem is featured. It may sound gross, boring, or just plain weird, but none of those words are ones that could accurately be applied to the piece. In the post Derek uses so much detail and texture contrast that the eye balls do look "squishy" and the brain stem looks thick like a tree branch. It's incredible, the work that some people can do.
Derek has done various pieces of cover art for bands that I could only dream of doing and I have no clue how the man gets the ideas for his creations. It would be a dream come true to be able to meet with Derek and maybe even have him give me a pointer or two with my own work!
I supose the thing that gives me the most confidence is from the beginning of AMP's interview with Derek...
AMP: How did you get into doing illustration and design? Did you go to school for it or did you have some sort of connection?
Derek: Well, I've been drawing ever since I can remember. I was really into animation growing up, which I can probably attribut living so close to Disney World growing up. That place is like crack for creative minds. I thought that's what I wanted to do, draw stupid characters all day. i went to school got really restless, decided I wanted to focus more on deisng and got my degree in motion graphics. Long story short, I've pretty much come full circle and draw stupid characters all day...
Turns out I'm more like Derek than I thought. I may not have lived close to Disney World but holy cow, I sure did watch enough Disney movies to be able to look at the cover of a Disney VHS case and almost flawlessly freehand Ariel, The Beast, The Geanie, Aladin, Cruella DeVil and many more. Who knows, maybe there's hope for me yet.
Teach me your Jedi mind tricks Derek...
