Arukun14 Interviews Epic Forum Artist Mallock1327

Hey guys, it’s Tim from the Team Epic Gamers, bringing you another featured artist in my series of interviews. This week, we’ll be featuring Mike from Canada, aka mallock1327 on the Epic forum, and show some of the awesome line work Mike has created.

Arukun14: Tell us a little about yourself and when you started drawing.

Mike: Hi, My name is Mike Staples, I’m 38 and I live in Canada. I moved here four ago from Boston, Massachusetts to live with my girlfriend. I started drawing at an early age, I think around seven or eight years old. I took art and design classes all through high school and attended the Art Institute and the School for the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston way back in 1994. I started a thread on the Epic Games forum called “Welcome to Sera” that features characters and creatures that might inhabit the world of Sera. Some are known and some are original concepts.

A: How long have you been a Gears of War fan?

M: I think I picked it up a few months after release, I remember having tried Ghost Recon and a few of the other launch titles, but they didn’t really appeal to me that much. I remember playing Gears for the first time, I fell in love with it’s dark, gritty atmosphere. I didn’t have Xbox LIVE at the time so I didn’t get to experience the multiplayer until the second game. My girlfriend and I became addicted to playing multiplayer and Horde mode and have been doing so ever since. It’s been nice to see the game progress through the series from the dark gritty streets of the first game to the towering columns and palm trees of Azura in the third.

A: Do you work digitally, traditionally? Or both? Which do you prefer the most? Most of your pieces seem to look like good old pencil and paper.

M: A lot of my work is done traditionally, like you said pencil and paper, but once in a while if I have time I will color a piece or two using markers and color pencils, then I scan it into the computer and I use a bit of Photoshop to blend in the colors and make certain effects. I usually start off with a rough sketch and go from there, changing things along the way. I usually don’t add the details in until the last phase of the drawing. I have been considering getting a tablet though, it gives the illustrations a really cool painted feel and you have a much larger color pallet at your disposal. I guess until I’m more familiar with the tablets I would have to lean more towards traditional as my favorite medium…

A: Your pencils are clean and detailed. You seem to have a bit of influence from comic artists.

M: I collected comics all through the eighties and nineties, I had a lot of favorite artists including Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, and Art Adams. I was amazed at what these guys were able to accomplish. I spent hours trying to duplicate what I was seeing jumping off the pages of the comics. I think after of while trying to emulate their styles, they eventually merged and I came up with my own unique style.

I use a lot of different mechanical pencils, they have a nice clean, sharp line to them. I usually don’t add a lot of the detail in until the end of the illustration, when I’ve got the “base” for what I am trying to accomplish, things such as gear, weapons, etc… I do tend to get carried away with the detail sometimes… just sometimes.

A: I’ve noticed that some of your work feature Locust. Do you have a personal favorite?

M: Hmmm that’s a tough one, as far as the multiplayer characters go I like the Savage Grenadier and the Savage Marauder they kind of stand out from the rest of the group. I like the design of the Digger Boomer also, I was blown away by all of the details on his armor. I am a big fan of the Lambent too, mainly for all of their crazy off the wall mutations, the Gunker stands out the most. I saw the Z-Brush model of him a few weeks back and my jaw hit the floor.

If I have to pick just one though I would say the Savage Grenadier…

A: Your Skorge piece is awesome! Tell us a little bit in how you did this piece.

M: The first full Gears piece I did was of Skorge, I wanted it to look like he had just jumped down off of some high cliff or something and landed ready for action. I had done a rough of the pose, got his armor all laid out and then I got stuck. I remember trying to find decent images of his staff with the chainsaws at the ends, for some reason I couldn’t find them anywhere, someone on the forum eventually helped my out with those. For the background I think I got inspiration from the multiplayer map, Highway, with all of the Locust architecture.

I’ve done a few other Kantus illustrations since then, There is one I enjoyed doing was an older, almost elderly Kantus with long robes and a cane (of course the cane had a razor at the end of it) I tried to make his outfit look worn and tattered almost falling apart, just to kind of give it that visual nod that this guy had been around a very long time.

A: Some of your work feature creatures that I have not seen on the actual game. Tell us a little bit about them.

M: When I started the thread, my philosophy was that Sera is a BIG place, probably the size of Earth so it must have more characters and creatures than what is featured in the games.

I tend to lean more towards designing creatures; the Locust Pounder was one. That was a favorite on the forum, just a large hulking Locust that carries a giant hammer made of steel and concrete, another one was the Locust Splinter, basically a cross between a Wretch and Ticker. It has a canister on it’s back that is filled with razor sharp metal shards that fly everywhere when it explodes. Not all of them come out the way I had originally planned, there was one I did early on, a Locust transport called the Raptor, I was never really fond of it (Ok, I hated it) months down the road I redesigned it into the Locust Dreadnot…

A: Do you get the inspiration from the game to make these concepts? Or beyond the game, such as fan fiction?

M: I do get a lot of inspiration from the games, I don’t have to go far to look for that. Other ideas come from collaborations I have done with other forum members like Jay the Arbiter, he writes a series in the fan fiction section about an elite group of Locusts called the Soul Killers, once in a while we collaborate on something, he gives me a description of one of his characters and I will try and get it as close to what he envisioned the character looking like as I can.

A: Any tips for the aspiring community?

M: Keep practicing!  There is always something new to learn, and don’t be afraid to take constructive criticism from your fellow artists, it’s how you grow as an artist. I also want to thank all of the forum members who have supported my work since I started the thread.

Thanks for your time, Mike. And we’re glad you were able to share some of your insights with us! Hope to see more awesome work from you in the future.

For more awesome work, be sure to catch the EpicGamers group on deviantART.