The Critical Dimensions of a Gez Fry Illustration
- 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Ah, so we’ve caught you before a stylistic turning point! I’m
curious as to what direction you might head in. You mentioned your favorites
-- might you move along the lines of Joe Madureira?
Well, I'm not going for a super-stylised look. Who knows, it might look the same to some people. My goal is to get more expression and dynamism in the characters' faces and poses.
I look forward to seeing it. Let’s talk about specific characters. Are there any characters that you’re especially fond of? Are there any interesting stories or sources of inspiration behind any of them that you’d like to share?
)
I do have some favorite characters, but I'm drawing them as we speak so I can't show them yet! But of the ones on my site, I think my faves are Charlie and Adila from Countdown. Though the comic didn't end up getting made, the writer, Mathieu Mariolle, and I did some conceptual development, including these character designs. He gave me descriptions of their personalities and histories and I translated those descriptions into visuals. Adila is a graffiti artist who is actually an android (an artificial human), and Charlie is the only human on an all-android police force. So they are very contradictory characters, and operate outside the accepted norms for their species. I wanted to translate that conflicted nature into the visual designs, so I made Adila a lively looking girl with red hair, Japanese irezumi tattoos and a distinctive urban outfit. I drew Charlie as a weathered cop with white hair, although he's only in his thirties. He has lost an eye, and despite the availability of artificial body parts, is too stubborn to use a new one and takes pride in his glass eye. It's a symbol of his humanity. I gave him tattoos as well to give the characters a common strand.
Tell us about your White Buffalo characters. I like
how they’re all subtly portrayed in a similar color scheme --)
)
are they a team?
They're members of a street gang in a futuristic/cyberpunk city -- hence the similar colour schemes. Reeve and Kay are brother and sister. Reeve's bandaging and scarring have been with him since his childhood and are the result of a genetic disease that affects many inhabitants of the city's poor zones. Henubis is an android with a robotic arm that he built to replace the one he lost. Finally, Kay is the eponymous White Buffalo and the key to a brighter future. She just doesn't know it yet...
Rebelstar
stands out stylistically on your website. Was working with a more simplified
tone a challenge for you? Do you prefer the Rebelstar style or
that of White Buffalo?
Rebelstar was probably the most fun project I've worked on yet. The style wasn't too hard to come up with, but I have a long way to go in terms of my drawing ability before I can do it full justice. I have to make things a lot more dynamic and get more motion into the pics. Having said that, I do like the sense of the characters' personalities they have in their portraits. I wouldn't pick White Buffalo's style or Rebelstar's style as a personal fave. I like working in both, and, ultimately, I want to get better at both!
We at Guu love the Evisu ad. Would you tell us about the illustration process regarding this piece?
)
Thanks! The art directors on the project gave me a very in-depth brief with many ideas. It was very exciting to read. Some of the ideas were wicked and could be used as is, and some I was worried wouldn't be all that effective once implemented -- for example, having the rotund Evisu character as a hero type. So I made some alternative suggestions that they were quite keen on. I drew quite a lot of sketches for that job and we worked very closely together to get an image we were all happy with. It was a really enjoyable project to do, and it never felt like they were imposing a rigid vision on me. Working with art directors as a team is a hugely important aspect of being an illustrator, and that was a lesson I learned (the easy way) with Evisu.