When we started the latest version of our personal website we knew we wanted something technically difficult but also visually appealing. After brainstorming for a while about the theme of the site we came up with the ‘Robots vs. Nerds’ concept and took it to our buddy Josh Hunter to see what he thought. He immediately started throwing out new ideas and understood what we were trying to accomplish. His artistic talent brought the technical Flash to life and made the project breath. We asked him to answer a few questions for us and talk about his new company and book publications. Read on for the full interview:
LogicBomb: How long have you been illustrating?
Josh: “I have been drawing for most of my life, but have been professionally illustrating for ten years. I began collecting comic books when I was very young and would draw the covers and heroes from their pages. But, I doubt I ever thought there was a ”career” available to anyone who liked to draw or illustrate at that time–I just didn’t have that connect with the face behind the art until I read about the Psychadellic poster artists of the 1960’s. Stanley Mouse, Rick Griffin and Wes Wilson were doing exactly what I had wanted to do, which was to meld a passion for illustration and music. I was in the middle of business school and I knew that career wasn’t meant for me. I gleaned what I could and took to handing out my own posters. That helped land me my first job in Missoula, Montana creating custom t-shirt illustrations and logos. From there, I haven’t looked back.”
LogicBomb: What other styles of art have you used for other work?
Josh: “Most of my work is based in traditional drawing. So, sketching, pencil and gouache are big components to my work’s foundation. But, I spend months out of the year focusing exclusively on oil paintings or Vector artwork. I also have times where I’m compelled to create collage work–mostly this is bits of paper added to my own drawings to give the optical illusion that there is depth or color richness contrasts. After I graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago, I walked away with a versatile education that had exposed me to a wide array of mediums and methods to create. If you visit my person website (www.illustrateddreams.com) you’ll see that effect. Some may see it as all over the place in terms of style, but to me, there are too many possible solutions for the same problem and I constantly look to achieve new results by switching those influences up.”
LogicBomb: What other pieces of your work are in the wild that people can enjoy?
Josh: “I began by creating a bunch of poster artwork for venues like the Fox Theater in Boulder, and for Bill Graham Presents in California. In October of 2008, Eric and I released The 27s : The Greatest Myth of Rock & Roll–a non-fiction graphic novel exploring the pop-culture phenomenon behind rock stars dying at the age of 27. And, about a month ago, I released my first children’s picture book, The Little Hope Book, created with author and girlfriend, Leah Alagna. The story is written about a boy who dreams of becoming an artist and his friendship with his cat, Hope. The story is truly unique in that is based in truth and the writing style is a mixture of old storybook and poem. To match this, the artwork begins comic and gradually turns into photo-realism. You can check out some of book @ www.thelittlehopebook.com.”
LogicBomb: Can you describe the process you took when developing the pieces for logicbombmedia.com?
Josh: “This was a fun project purely based on the artistic freedom you gave to me and the clarity of vision held between you and Mauro. Once we had our initial roundtable discussion of concept and vision, I was able to come back home and explore differnt illustration styles for both the nerds and robots. What truly drove this work was your idea to have the robots menacing and the nerds goofy, but still cool. Luckily, this was right where I feel some of my illustration work is best–creating these comic book inspired worlds and characters that are just that; a little goofy and wacky with perspecitves, but still edgy. I wanted the style to harken back to comic styles of the past decade or so, but I wanted it to be contemporary as well. I felt the best way to offset this work as truly unique to Logic Bomb was to push the edges and spatial perspectives by working with sharp colors and saturations. Hopefully, the audience will feel the depth that was intended by using the colors that I did and then having Mauro blow the layers out in their parlax universe. I find the effect to be unlike anything I’ve seen done before on the web.”
LogicBomb: After everything was put together what was your favorite scene?
Josh: “I love the nerds! We need to have a Logic Bomb T with that on the front, because I would wear it and flash the Bomb all around. It was a great idea to have the nunchuk mouse and garage-part gadgets, I just ran with it.”
LogicBomb: What other work does your company, Samadhi Creations do?
Josh: “We operate as Creative Marketing Strategists and we work with other artists and creatives to develop their brands and create efficient messages through words, design, illustration, custom soundtracks, or by simply being found by relevant searches on search engines such as Google. We approach all our projects by first looking at the big picture before zooming in on the smaller pieces, creating value for our clients by fusing our knowledge, drive, and vision to make their presence and presentation even better where it matters the most.”
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I idmaire Josh Hunter..Thanks for your post!
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