Hi, I'm Scotty Gillespie. I am an illustrator that plays in different mediums such as digital illustration, ceramics, textiles and animation. I like to make simple, bold and colourful worlds that usually lean towards the nostalgic, tender and the silly side.
I would say the really obvious one for me is Keith Haring. I have always been aware of them and their work way before I knew I wanted to pursue art. I used to watch MTV and see their dog animations bark on adverts and I was always fixated with their persona and how charismatic their art was.
I get my ideas from pretty much being super noisy and observant to my surroundings. I think I'm a super sensitive person so I tend to focus on tiny little things that may go unnoticed (a blessing and a curse, haha) but it seems to bring out some nice ideas for my practice! I keep a little book and jot down ideas when I hear something funny. I have been having ongoing therapy sessions recently and there is some absolute gems for me to create into funny illustrations.
I am a HUGE gaming nerd, I love spending hours zoning out on my switch. One of my favourite game franchises is Final Fantasy so my approach was to imagine what Final Fantasy would look like if I made it. I wanted the big back illustration look like stills from the game such as a character select screen or a standoff between the final boss and the main character etc. I imagined the final boss to be this huge electrical entity that wanted to engulf the world with darkness. You know, the usual haha. Final Fantasy final bosses are always notoriously over the top and they have a lot of HP (health) to chip away so the hat design was a homage to that.
It's definitely ceramics! Though definitely the most frustrating medium I use, the end results (when they go as I wanted) are always super satisfying.
Cuppa coffee in the morning is essential! once I've had that I usually crack on with work, I tend to do ceramics in the morning as they take longer, pet my dog Harrison about 50 times, have lunch which usually consists of a sandwich and a packet of walkers crisps (unless I'm feeling fancy and I'll go to the nice coffee shop around the corner and get something from them). Afternoons are mainly for drawing/ responding to emails/ petting my dog another 50 times. Then I usually finish around 6pm. I very rarely work after 6 unless I have a big deadline. I work in my studio at home so having a hard no work after 6 helps me not overwork and burn myself out which is easily done. Evenings are spent either playing computer games or catching up on my tv shows (currently Lord of the rings and Game of thrones TV shows)
Don't be so hard on yourself when things don't go to plan, you only get better with the mistakes you make along the way. Trust your visual language, it's never going to be for everyone but that is ok and in fact is enough, if you like it then chances are someone else in the world will.