One of the exciting rewards of running an animation/illustration art blog is the chance to interact with talented artists; through comments, messages and pingbacks left on various articles and posts on my blog I’ve been lucky indeed to get acquainted with such amazing artists like Enrico Casarosa, Louie Del Carmen, Yoko Tanji, Todd Akita, Jackson Sze, Tessar Lo, and more. Game art designer/comic artist Nate Simpson from Seattle is the latest artist I’ve had the fortune of “meeting”, below’s a Q & A as he tells us more about his work and influences.

Q : Please tell us a little more about the yourself, your background, what work/project you’re presently on, and what projects that are lined up.

Q : What are some of the films/animation/artists that influence you the most / that you like ?

A : My biggest influences, in order, are Moebius, Geof Darrow, William Stout, and Arthur Rackham. I watched a lot of anime as a kid — Macross, Nausicaa, and Akira all had big impacts on my style. Appleseed probably affected the way I think about drawing tech, as well. These days, I’m excited by the cultural cross-pollination that seems to be happening in comics and animation. Tekkonkinkreet and FLCL are probably my favorite recent-ish anime projects. Comics wise, I’m really enjoying Yotsuba and 20th Century Boys, as well as some of the new Western artists like Brandon Graham, Sara Pichelli, and Benoit Springer. With the internet, there’s just too much awesomeness — I can’t keep track, anymore. I’m sure I’m forgetting somebody really rad. Bengal. I like that guy’s stuff a lot.

Q : What made you decide to depart from your games job to do comics ?

A : I think this happens to just about everybody who does art for games for more than a few years. At some point, you get a little worn down by the deadlines and the constant compromise (and you’ve managed to squirrel away some savings), and you want to take a stab at something a little purer. This is probably just one stage in an ongoing cycle of making games/saving some money/going freelance/going back to games. I guess we’ll see if Nonplayer opens up some new doors.

For jobs/project queries contact Nate via his website. All artwork shown property of Nate Simpson.