Welcome Jacob.  I want to thank you, first of all, for sitting down with us and letting us talk with you about your work!

For the visitors here who may not have learned of your website, or seen your work, will you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m a painter, turned illustrator, turned designer from Seattle that now makes a living as a senior creative director in middle of the desert in Phoenix, Arizona. Life is strange to say the least. Several years ago I returned to painting, through traded my Winsor brushes and Golden Acrylics for a Wacom tablet and a Mac loaded with all the creative applications you could ever ask for, and have since resumed doing commercial illustration for a select clientele.

Recently my work has appeared in Ballistic Publishing’s EXPOSÉ, was added to Steve Wozniak’s personal art collection, been featured at MacWorld San Francisco and can soon be seen on limited edition tee’s at Barney’s New York and Fred Segal Los Angeles..

Since you started as traditional artist, what caused you to make the jumpfrom traditional medium to digital?

I guess you could say I was forced into it. Shortly after I got started in the business, digital work really started to come into its own, so I found myself at a crossroads - go digital or be left behind. Luckily I chose to pick up a Mac and give it a go and haven’t looked back since. I still appreciate the traditional mediums and those that continue to create with them, but the things you can do with digital is just amazing and it gets better and better.

How has your traditional art training impacted your current digital work?

I guess you could say I was forced into it. Shortly after I got started in the business, digital work really started to come into its own, so I found myself at a crossroads - go digital or be left behind. Luckily I chose to pick up a Mac and give it a go and haven’t looked back since. I still appreciate the traditional mediums and those that continue to create with them, but the things you can do with digital is just amazing and it gets better and better.

One thing I can wholeheartedly say that I got out of classical fine arts training is the ability to see. Not so much in the literal sense, but in the way of truly looking at something and see what it’s made of. I mean when working with digital tools and you need to paint a face, most users start with a photo resource and manipulate that to be what they want. When doing that with paint, you really have to make that skin from scratch using underlying layers of blue and green layered beneath the more obvious hues to create that reality... pulling some of those techniques into digital work can quickly take an image from flat to full of life. 

                                     

What kind of things do you pull inspiration from, when you sit down to create new images?

Inspiration comes from all over the place - that split second shot of an immaculately lit back-alley or the building with the questionable, exposed conduit run and even an epic scene from a movie I’m watching. A lot of times I’ll quickly sketch out these little bits of inspiration or take a snapshot for later reference, so it’s safe to say I’ve got little scraps all over the place. Whatever the source, I do tend to gravitate towards the dramatic and then amplify that drama when I recreate my version of the reality that inspired it - this may just be me not knowing when to leave well enough alone and turning the volume way up.

What are your current endeavors?

I recently wrapped up a big piece for Deth Killers new clothing line that was really a blast. It’s probably one of the biggest commercial illustrations I think I’ve ever done as the piece was designed to be wrapped around a t-shirt using a new printing process that required it to contain a ridiculous amount of pixels. I’ve got several other illustration projects in the works ranging from mood boards to book covers. I’m also still finding the time to do quite a few pieces for myself which is really what it’s all about - creating art that you as the artist likes. I’m also simultaneously working on a couple of graphic novel projects, though as they’ve proven to be a considerable amount of work, I’ve had to come up with a more traditional looking style that can keep up with the demands of sequential work.

What software have you used throughout the years, and what do you currently use to create your pieces?

I started out using an already outdated copy of Photoshop 2.5 on my first Mac. Yep, that was the last version before they added layers, so you really had to be confident in what you were doing, or you had to do it over again and again. Luckily about a year or so later I won the door prize at some sort of Adobe road show presentation which included copies of Photoshop 3.0, Bryce 1.0 and if I recall correctly, some early version of Kai’s Power Tools. While getting the software was great, the coolest part of the day was not only watching Kai Krause demo Bryce, but meeting him when picking up my prize. But I digress. As soon as I got home I tore my loot open and the rest as they say, is history. Not only was I able to do way more with layers, but I was making weirdo half submerged chrome worlds in Bryce (come on, who hasn’t done exactly that when using Bryce!?).

Ever since then Photoshop has continued to be the center of everything I do as it’s simply the most powerful image editor in existence, truly a jack of all trades. I’ve also dabbled a bit in Painter and have collected a slew of Photoshop filters and actions along the way. I continued to work with Bryce though version 5 and then ultimately made the move to Vue as Bryce’s future became sketchy and I simply needed something with more juice. Vue quickly became the place I started all my pieces in as even in the early years it proved itself to be an unbelievably powerful tool, especially when coupled with Poser.

Today my core toolset covers all the bases and consists of Photoshop CS4 Extended, Vue 7 Infinite, Poser 8 and Modo 3.

Your texture work is amazing, and I know you have used the World Matters Texture library in a lot of your pieces, how has using it helped you in your work?

Having a repository of quality, ready to use textures is worth its weight in gold. I work pretty fast and create layers on top of layers until I find that perfect level of imperfection, so being able to grab another seamless tile without having to do a bunch of additional work means I’m on to the next element and can keep moving ahead. To further maximize efficiency, I’ve even saved out some of my customized World Matters Textures for quick use in future pieces... it’s all about being prepared!

So you have a graphic novel in the works, and of course that’s a TON of work, but do you know when we might be able to check out the finished printed version?

Ha! I wish I could answer that one, but any date I give would be either be wishful thinking or depressingly far away, so I’ll try not to jinx myself and just go with coming soon. Eventually ;)

All in good time, right? It will be worth the wait.  Hey, Jacob, thanks a bunch for sharing all of this with us.  We really appreciate you being willing to take some time out for us. As always we look forward to your future creations.
Take care.

To find out more about JCD’s work, check out jacobcharlesdietz.com.  You’ll find tons of awesome artwork.  He has a huge body of work on the site as well as printed products and design services.  Be sure to subscribe to his NEWS UPDATES and RSS feed, so you can get JCD news and images delivered to you.

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