Artist visit. Dan Mumford and drew Millward

Work by Dan Mumford

Work by Drew Millward

Recently I was lucky enough to attend a lecture by the IIlustrators Dan Mumford and Drew Millward. They are both well recognised illustrators and it was interesting to hear about their artistic careers. Dan talked first about his influences which included Monster/ Horror movies, video games and music. He focused on beginning his career with band art and album covers which appeared to have a lot in common with his interests. This has made up the bulk of his work and is one of the reasons his name is so well recognised. He also discussed a problem he has experienced with his work, he found that his once distinctive style was being replicated by many of his fans. He has recently started to up the detail in his work and challenging himself to work more realistic.

Next we had a talk from Drew Millward who had a lot of different comments to make. To begin he described his childhood likes such as “Where the wild things are” and a variety of kids shows. He began his career by doing a lot of illustrated event posters and work for bands. Interestingly he began to tire of his drawing style recently and has begun creating more simplistic work. This work is still very much in his style but is much more graphic in its stricter.

After the talk I had a chance to talk with Dan and Drew about my work. They were both incredibly positive about my pen drawings and offered a lot of positive comments. The two talks and the positive feedback has left me with a lot of new thoughts about my future but today was very fun and eye opening.