Everyone and their mother are gearing up for the first ever Salt Lake Comic Con, but while most of the attention is being put on the celebrities, the real stars housing the booths to show off art and comics are working hard to make the event more than just a Hollywood spectacle. So of course our friend Gavin Sheehan from Salt Lake City Weekly would interview some of the local artists appearing at the event. Sheehan just nabbed an interview with Magic: The Gathering and D&D artist Steve Argyle where they talk about his career, all with fancy artwork to be seen! Gavin’s Underground interview with Steve Argyle
Gavin: How was it for you developing your skills over time and learning the ropes of the industry while you were essentially defining your style? Steve: Well, style is sort of like love. It comes when you stop searching and obsessing over it. Only there is less crying with a bottle of wine and ten pounds of chocolate. Not much less, but some less. You arrive at a personal style by doing the things that interest you, and highlighting and incorporating the things you like. It comes from learning art as a language to show people the way you see things. Then it’s honest, and it will never seem like you have to actively create and maintain a style. That being said, in a production environment, you’re often asked to create a certain style. A signature look. Either something that they have an example of, or they want to create a brand identity. So you get to explore a lot of different ways of doing things. Here and there, you discover little bits of various styles, genres, techniques, that you like, and you incorporate them in your future work. At some point, that culminates into a recognizable style all your own. For some people to like, and some to get all internet ranty about. Gavin: How did the opportunity come about to work with Alderac Entertainment and what did you first work on with them when you joined their staff? Steve: Well, I’d freelanced for them for years. And they had been going through art directors like M&Ms, mostly tacking the duties onto someone who was already serving some other function in the company. “You there! Are you done cleaning the toilets? There’s art that needs… whatever an art director does!” They announced that they were looking, and they send me an email with “hey, you should totally apply to be our art director. It’s a ton of work and less than a ton of money, but it’ll be fun!” I told them that I couldn’t take it on alone, but that if they wanted to hire my studio, we’d take it. So basically the actual art director is Adrian Burton. I just take credit and get to look through all the pretty art while he does all the hard stuff.
