We’ve interviewed a number of Science Fiction Writers over the past few months. For a change of pace I interviewed an artist. Gavin Mundy is a self taught artist who enjoys conventional subjects but, with an over-active imagination too vivid for his own good, frequently depicts fantasy, sci-fi and ‘real world’ space subjects.

Do you already know what a piece is going to look like before you put anything to paper/canvas? If not, what is the process you go through in coming up with your imagery?

GM Occasionally I may make a few changes along the way and sometimes I intentionally start out with a rough idea but work out the details as I come to them. However on the whole I do have a pretty good idea of how the final piece will look like before I start. As I use acrylics for the most part I tend to do the background first and paint the foreground over it or leave a space for the foreground. As such I need to know before I start what everything is and how it will all relate to each other. I enjoy other media like oils and pastels and also creating digital images but I’d usually do a small compositional sketch to make sure it looks ok small then I know it should work big.

As for inspiration it can be anything. another image I’ve seen or an old sketch I’ve done or a lighing effect I’ve seen and want to reproduce, or even as vague a thing as a feeling I want to portray. Sometimes I just doodle and see what it looks like. My own photo collection often provides some inspiration but there’s no one way I can say I always work.

What’s the longest you’ve ever spent in your studio in one stretch?

GM I have spent several hours in one stint in the past but that was a few years ago. I’ve learnt to pace myself, take breaks, as when I go back to it you can see it more objectively and see any corrections or alterations that may be needed.

As a reader, which science fiction authors provoke the best visuals in your imagination with their writing?

GM I really don’t know what to say for this one, partly cos I’m useless at names or associating who wrote what and partly because there’s so many to choose from.

We give you a coupon redeemable for any spaceship depicted in a science fiction story (no insurance included). What ship do you redeem it for and what do
you do with it?

GM Theres lots of cool ships, however deciding what to do with ‘em is quite hard. But the first thing I’d probably do is check out all the planets and moons in our solar system and see what pluto really does look llike. Then I’d probably fly low over cities just to show off. There are so many spacecraft it’s hard to choose. One of my first thoughts was Thunderbird 2 though that’s not technically a spaceship but would be fun to fly, and the cool little craft from Flight Of The Navigator was prettty neat and nifty. The Star Trek Klingon Bird of Prey just looks like it means business, plus its green. Several ships in Babylon 5 were cool though for manoeuvrability and thrill ride factor the little Starfury fighters would be cool. For machoness the dropship from aliens are hard to beat though possibly topping that is the Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars, its sheer size and scale wins out. Plus you get all the tie-fighters and other ships that come with it.

Gavin’s Website

Related posts:

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response to this post, or trackback from your own site. Wax-political uses threaded comments so you can reply to any comment directly by clicking on the relevent reply to comment link.