Duncan Fegredo Interview

I luckily managed to get in touch with Duncan!! He agreed to answer a few of my question via email. Because he was so busy with current projects, he asked if I would be able to summarise the interview into 4 questions. So I needed to think of good questions that would gain me the most information, avoid anything I already knew the answer too or would have a good do at guessing. I wanted to have specific question that could be expanded on. I wanted to avoid questions that had to much to do with the narrative and story telling itself because it is less relevant to my practice - comic books arn't something that I want to take my skills into but its still beneficial to hear about his creative practice as a whole and see what I can learn from it.

I started by brainstorming some of the questions I could ask him...

• - What lead your drawing skills into the comic book industry?
• - What has been the biggest struggle working in the comic book industry?
• - How does digital work come into play with your practice?
• - Do your produce any illustration work outside of comic books?
• - What has been your favourite project to work on? and why?
• - How did you come about working on Hellboy? How has this influenced your career?
• - Is there an illustrator/artist that you are particularly inspired by? and why?
• - What advise would you give to a young illustrator being introduced to the creative world?
• - How did you come about working on the new star wars storyboarding? And did this require different skills to your usual comic book work?

These are the final 4 questions:

• - What has been your favourite project to work on? and why?

I wanted to hear the thing that he most enjoyed within his career, I kno that the comic world comes with a lot of hard work and long hours, so what has the been his favourite thing to drive his passions as a comic book artist.

• -  Is there an illustrator/artist that you are particularly inspired by? and why?

I thought it would be beneficial to hear who his key inspirations are, weather these are comic book artists or other practitioners, it would be good to hear about how these people inspire his work.

• - What advise would you give to a young illustrator being introduced to the creative world?

With him being far into a successful career, I would like to hear what advise he has for somebody just going into the industry, if theres tips or advise about how to approach it or even things he has realised about it.

• - How did you come about working on the new star wars storyboarding? And did this require different skills to your usual comic book work?

With star wars being such a massive production I thought it could be interesting to hear about the specifics behind that work, what are the different skills required?

Duncans Answers...
(sorry about the really small text it wont let me change it)

- What has been your favourite project to work on? and why? That’s a hard question to answer simply. I’m proud of all the work I did with Peter milligan, he’s a fantastic writer and I think that increased my desire to do better work, to rise to the standard of his writing if you like.  I’m equally proud to have worked on Hellboy, I was a huge fan of Mike Mignola's work and I was fortunate to be afforded the opportunity to work with him. I was even more aware of having to push my art to feel part of the world that Mike created, to overcome the prejudices that many fans felt about anybody other than Mike drawing his signature creation.  Storyboarding Noah was amazing simply because I got the opportunity to work on a film. But storyboarding Rogue One satisfied my 13 year old self,  and that’s hard to beat! -  Is there an illustrator/artist that you are particularly inspired by? and why? This changes all the time. During Hellboy it was obviously Mike Mignola, I spent a lot of time stying Mikes art to work out how best to mould my art into a good fit for the work at hand whilst still retaining my own identity. Mike has both an incredible design sense and excellent storytelling skills, theres always something you can learn from his work.  But there are many more, Alex Toth, Ralph McQuarrie and a host of comic artists and concept artists. At the root of all of it is good, solid draftsmanship and story telling. - How did you come about working on the new Star Wars storyboarding? And did this require different skills to your usual comic book work? I was contacted by a visual effects producer through my online store, they liked what they saw, asked if I had done storyboards before. There are other artists who have worked in comics also working on the Star Wars films, it’s possible one of them mentioned me. Costume designer Gynn Dillon was aware I’d boarded Noah, that may have helped. The skills are similar though I also had to learn how to paint quick images in photoshop. I went in expecting to do rough line drawings but they wanted greyscale paintings instead, that was a bit of a leap. The main skill was the ability to take instructions verbally, from a variety of sometimes conflicting viewpoints. It was quite unsettling as I had to take in a lot of information very quickly and make some sort of sense of it. So, wing it all the way! - What advise would you give to a young illustrator who is trying to make a career in the creative world? If you aren’t prepared to put a lot of effort in and work long hours on things you don’t always like, don’t bother. It can be very lonely work, it can be badly paid, you don’t always get the credit you deserve… but if you read all that and still want to do it I wish you luck. If you are driven to do the work it can be very rewarding.

Im really pleased with the response it has some really useful information. Hearing about how the different influences that the stories and writers have on his illustration style - particularly Mike Mignola. Its interesting hearing about working on rough one, and tackling the information - it shows how you need to be able to adapt your skills well when working on a massive project, when a good opportunity comes about you need to be willing to adapt your skills and trust your initiative. Hearing about how he comes about the projects through previous work and people mentioning his name - this same idea applies to any industry - the more work you do and put out into the world will lead to new opportunities when people realise what you can do. His response to the last questions really shows how committed you need to be your work to keep going, you need to be really interested in what your doing to stay engaged with it - and be prepared to not always get the recognition you expected, and be motivated within yourself. Thats why its so important to find the right place for yourself within the industry.