EXTRA CREDIT INTERVIEW WITH VIVIENNE TO:

Joining LitPick as the first artist to return for an Extra Credit interview is Vivienne To! Vivienne joins us from Australia where she is an illustrator and visual development artist working in film and publishing. She has designed characters and creatures for both animated and live action feature films including The LEGO Movie, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, and Walking With Dinosaurs. Vivienne is the art director on The LEGO Batman Movie and has been an artist for Disney-Hyperion, Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, and Scholastic.

When you are creating artwork for a book, are you given a copy of the book to read first, or how do you create artwork that relates to the story?

I’m given the full manuscript to read most of the time. This is particularly important when I’m also illustrating the interior art or for cover work when I’m asked to pitch a much wider range of ideas. That’s when I’ll really need to have my own interpretation of the characters and action and the essence of what the book is about. Occasionally, when the art director has a much more specific brief in mind, I’ll work with detailed excerpts instead. In these cases I rely on the art director’s thorough knowledge of the story along with helpful input from the editor and author.

In your artwork, do you ever use a person you know or some of their features?

I don’t use specific features, but I do sometimes shoot reference for difficult poses. Things like action poses can be tricky without reference because of the more extreme angles. It’s usually either me or my (very patient) partner posing and the shoots can end up pretty hilarious. I remember one cover I worked on had several sword-wielding characters. Unfortunately the closest thing to a sword that we had on hand was a vacuum cleaner tube. It worked great for reference, but we definitely did NOT look very cool! I could barely take the shots because I was laughing so hard.

Do you ever get artist’s block, and what do you do to overcome it?

Absolutely. I’ve found artist’s block usually happens when I’m not sure of what my end goal is or what story I’m trying to tell. It can help to ask myself a lot of questions about what the story is and what the characters’ backgrounds and motivations are. We do this a lot in film work when we design our characters. Research really helps with this phase too.

If I’m still really stuck, sometimes after reading the book and roughing out a few ideas, I’ll jump onto another project and leave the tricky one aside for a while. Coming back to things with fresh eyes can do wonders.

Have you ever found it especially difficult to create artwork for a particular book? (You don’t need to name the book.)

Some projects are definitely harder than others. One series I worked on had a lot of epic battle scenes and it was one of the first books I illustrated when I was new to publishing. I was used to film work - I came from a background where I worked with images in wide landscape format. Suddenly I had to illustrate chaotic battles in a much tighter portrait layout. It kind of did my head in and took me so much longer than it should have. By the time I did the next books in the series I’d studied more examples and gotten the hang of it, but that first one was a really big challenge for me.

Is there a book for which you would have liked to have done the artwork, whether or not that book had artwork in it?

I remember reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when I was in school and being blown away by it. It would be great to revisit that as an illustrator.

If you could have lunch with one other artist (dead or alive!), who would it be?

There are so many amazing artists out there it’s hard to choose! I think I’d have lunch with Arthur Rackham and pick his brain about storytelling in his work and also the golden age of book illustration. 

Wild Card Question: You illustrate books and you work on movies. Are these two types of work similar, and which one do you prefer?

This is a tough one! Both film concept art and publishing illustration use similar skills, in the sense that you need to draw and you’re creating visuals for a story…but they have very different end goals. In film, your role is to explore and come up with ideas to design characters, sets and props. This can mean doing a LOT of versions and revisiting designs again and again within a larger team. The approved designs then get handed down to the next department to create for the movie and so on. What ends up on screen is the collective effort of hundreds of people.

Book illustration on the other hand is about creating the final images that people will see to help tell the story. Usually only one artist is responsible for the final look of the illustrations, working closely with a small team at the publishing house. Though we're not always in the same country! I actually haven’t met most of the art directors and designers I’ve worked with in the US. We do everything online, whereas film work often needs to be in person in the studio. So the short answer is that I like aspects of both because they’re quite different. I just wish there were more hours in the day to do both!

 

Vivienne, thank you for visiting LitPick again and letting us get to know you a little better. All of your answers were interesting, but we found it fascinating to know that your work for books is done online and you have not met most of the art directors and designers you have worked with.

 

INTERVIEW WITH VIVIENNE TO:

Today we are joined by Vivienne To for Six Minutes with an Illustrator!

While living in London in 2012, Vivienne branched out into children’s publishing. Since then she has illustrated several books including The Blackwell Pages series by K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr, the Randi Rhodes, Ninja Detective series by Octavia Spencer, Mouseheart by Lisa Fiedler as well as creating new covers for The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins.

How did you get started as an illustrator?

I drew a lot as a kid and loved to draw characters from my favorite cartoons. I soon realized I wanted to illustrate my own. I never thought it would be much more than a hobby, but by the end of school I knew I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

I picked up small freelance jobs in high school and university, for comic book and educational publishing, but then went into film and TV as a concept artist. I've only come back to publishing fairly recently and it's been really fun and challenging.

Who influenced you?

My older brother and I had really similar interests, which influenced me a lot when I was younger. We'd bounce ideas off each other, talk about our goals and be inspired by the Disney, Pixar and Studio Ghibli movies we watched. My mother was also a big influence, as she encouraged us both to do what we loved.

Do you have a favorite artist/subject/medium?

I quite like animals, if the Mouseheart cover hasn’t already given that away!

My main medium is digital painting, so I primarily work in Photoshop. It’s something I’ve gotten used to from working in a studio environment, where speed and the ability to make revisions are important.

As for favorite artists, there are too many to name. If I had to list a few, I'd include Hayao Miyazaki, Claire Wendling, Shaun Tan and Jon Klassen (I could honestly keep this list going for the next 6 minutes or more!).

What advice do you have for someone who wants to be an illustrator?

I would say try not to compare yourself to others too much. Do what you enjoy and let your own voice come through. This is something I struggled with starting out and am still learning. Every artist is different, with unique personalities and strengths and weaknesses. A lot of it comes down to your personal tastes, and art directors are good at picking up on that to match the right projects with the right people.

Also, this may sound obvious for book illustration, but I think it’s important to enjoy stories. It's all about narrative. If you're someone who likes to engage with the characters and their journeys, the work won't feel like work. It’s why I’d choose books and movies over advertising any day.

Where is your favorite place to work?

That depends where my computer is! My work setup is not very portable, so I need to be at my desk for most of the illustration process. What I love is the very early stages of a project when I sketch on paper. It's nice to be able to get out and go to the park or a cafe to work. 

What else would you like to tell us?

Some of the authors I’ve been in touch with have been the loveliest people. Many of them have poured their blood, sweat and tears into their books. I can’t begin to describe how rewarding it is to hear from an author who has loved the illustrations I’ve made for their story. To create images that resonate with storytellers (and hopefully audiences too) is a great feeling.

 

Vivienne, thank you so much for joining us for Six Minutes with an Illustrator! This has been wonderful!