Dale has been kicking it in the illustration scene for years - we are stoked to have him on board with Chulo Creative and had a bit of fun getting to know him with a little Q&A...check it out below.
What projects have you been working on lately?
Lately I have been working pretty close with my friends at Harley Heaven. doing all cool works Harley Davidson related, both live art and digital illustrations. Which has been really awesome. I also have been working on constant Shock Mansion illustrations and designs, super fun and super diverse work experience.
Tell us about your process from start to finish - is there anything odd or different about the way you work?
My process begins pretty much like every other creative, I sit and dream a little of all the awesome things im going to do then I actually sit down and start doing my research and development process. After that i move to some really rough layout concepts and design ideas. After my clients review the sketches and approve a direction i move to refined art to give them an idea about the levels of details and what to expect in final art. The next stage is basically zoning out for as many hours as it takes and producing amazing art for my client. Theres nothing odd in my process, except that I always listen too hardcore punk music to zone out, so its pretty loud and not at all a chilled vibe to outsiders haha.
What time of day do you prefer to work?
I prefer anytime that works but my balance usually sees me leaning more to nightshift. Its kinda cool because I can do the dad thing until the kids fall asleep, then i can put in as much hours as i need to
Do you have any childhood memories of drawing and getting into illustration?
My father used to draw and i remember vividly watching him night after night draw until i slept. So theres no denying that my father was a driving force into where i am today. Stoked to be from a family that loves and lives art. I just always remember saying, “one day, I want to be as good as dad” The chase is still red hot! He is a gun! I think im coming close though!
Do you have a favourite job you can tell us about?
My fav job to date is very hard to say, I think one of my proudest was the MR BLACK coffee liqueur design i did for their bottle. We ended up winning The Dieline awards back in 2014 which was rad, we even beat the likes of Absolute. Was nice and rewarding to be apart of a start up project that would see such an amazing result for all involved.
Tell us about your relationship with colour.
Colour and Dale, the most asked question of my career, ha! Look, Colour to me can’t just be thrown around, its a well thought out process and when done right is absolutley amazing. I think for me, Ive just been attracted to the skill involved in making the black and white art works stand out as much as a colour piece. I feel like its a challenge never won, but a challenge worth having! I’ve made it this far without relying on my bold colours or super busy backgrounds and what not. So i guess the theory of don’t fix it if it aint broke lives on in my world :)
Tell us about what collaboration means to you with organisations like Wacom and what it means to collaborate with organisations?
Collaborations are super important, as fun as they can be to reach out to your fav artist and do a sick piece and sell prints, theres something special about joining forces with notable organisations. Ive been working with Wacom over the last few years and we have a great relationship that sees me create cool content / designs for them time to time, our social reaches help each other, I feel like organisation connections can send an artist to a new level. In this day and age more and more of us are connecting with big companies to produce artwork we love and have been doing since the start, instead of the pain staking process of meeting a badly written brief that results in me drawing a multicoloured puppy dog! ( ps if any big companies want a multicoloured puppy dog, get at me! )
