Steve Scott is a world builder and in them, anything goes. It’s so creative and brilliant that you just want to see where he takes you. His colours are gorgeous, his compositions are fabulous. I think a great illustration is an image that makes you want to take time to explore and Steve does this with great aplomb.

Welcome to Thunder Chunky Steve. You use colours and characters so well and you’re always hitting such a high quality consistency with your illustrations. Have you found that you are always striving to better the last project in your work?

Thanks, that’s very flattering as I tend to see a thousand and one faults when I look at my own work. It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve been doing illustration as a full-time career. I can see my work has improved just by doing a lot of it… but also by having relatable imagery as apposed to the more psychedelic imagery I started out drawing.

What led to the voice you use? Did you have particular influences when you were growing up?

Again I still feel like I’m developing… so I’m an omnivoracious consumer of imagery!

A few years ago I was a bit stuck with illustration, trying to work out how to make a living at it. I was making a reasonably successful career as an animation director but I wanted to move into illustration.

I got some really good advice from Charlie Sells from Jelly, my agency in the UK. She talked about relatablity and accessibility and it really helped kickstart a proper career in illustration. It made me think more about how does this image relate to the viewer and what can they get out of it. In terms of relatability it’s the old ‘extra-ordinary from the ordinary’ idea. I’ve never formally studied illustration so this may seem obvious but it’s been really helpful to me and changes how I look at the world around me.

In terms of influences growing up, I grew up on Tintin comics… I was passed my uncle’s collection of 60s hardback Tintin comics and fell in love with the storytelling and style. It’s still something I look at. It’s had a big impact in terms of character design and colour choices. The super-flatness of it is very ingrained.

I also really loved psychedelic design… so illustrators like Martin Sharp, Tadanori Yokoo, Heinz Edelmann’s designs for the yellow submarine. In the last 10 years or so I would say Yves Chaland’s work and that whole school of Atom Style that was around in the 80s has had a big impact. Ever Meulen’s approach to imagery is so inspiring and always makes me want to shake up my approach to composition. In terms of colour; the ever present Charlie Harper, Chris Ware & Frank Newbould are people I’m still learning from. More recently I’ve been looking at lots of Ukiyo-e and Shin Hanga work.

Did you always want to be an illustrator?

Nope! When I was a kid I wanted to write James Bond novels, later it was to become a comic artist. In my 20s I wanted to make music and then I accidentally fell into animation while making a music video for my band. But illustration was always there as just something I did but seemed impossible to think of as a career until the last decade.

You seem to do most of your work for editorial – was that a conscious choice or just where you naturally progressed to?

The last year has seen a lot of work for editorial but more by accident than design.

I also do a fair bit of commercial work or otherwise I couldn’t do this full-time. I find that, apart from the U.S., editorial work is pretty badly paid… so I’m a bit choosy about taking on this type of work.

I know you are agented and I know it’s always the holy grail for illustrators. Did you get agented quite early on in your career or did you have to find a consistent look before being signed up?

I feel really lucky to have great agents. It’s been great for advice and help.

I didn’t get signed up early in my career. There was at least 12-15 years of doing jobs in various creative industries before an agent got interested in my work. Also the fact that I moved from Sydney to London really helped me. My style has changed a lot over the years and I hope will continue to do so. When Jelly signed me up I was drawing giant psychedelic heads and now I’m in a totally different space and style. Luckily they stuck with me! I don’t know if there’s a rigid approach to having a creative career. For me it’s about feeling my way through this, responding to what life is throwing at me.

Do you find yourself creating personas for your scenes so they’re styled more naturally?

It probably has a bit to do with my love of comics and working in animation. So you want to have a bit of a story in the imagery to help the eye navigate. Also I want the images to have some sort of emotion or humour. It’s not in every image but it’s something I think about.

What influences the colour choices in your work?

Colour is a constant struggle with me. I probably should stick to the same colour palette and have a ‘brand’ identity. However when I colour an image I’m usually thinking how can I create the right mood for this particular piece. So this means each image I start from the ground up. It’s probably not the best approach. I also grew up on lots of psychedelic art so I tend to go for punchy choices. At the moment I want to add more of a sense of light so I’m looking at a lot of photography. The work of Henri Riviere and Kawase Hasui have been really inspiring and I would love to bring more of sense of atmosphere and mood that these works have.

Your work for Racing Post is beautiful and shows how well you fill a scene and for it to work – was this a challenge for you?

Oh sheesh, thank you, yes that was a hard one to pull off. I’m not sure I entirely got that one right though. I now have a better idea of how I would construct a crowd scene. It’s about shaping a crowd into clusters and shapes that let your eye navigate the image. With the main image I wanted the eye to be drawn to the man on the chair. So you use shapes of bodies, legs and poses to point towards him… hopefully.

How did you go about planning such an ambitious set of illustrations?

Hmm… it all starts with lots of scribbling that gradually over a few rounds tightens up. So a lot is gut feeling and a hell of a lot of revisions.

You’ve also done a lot of illustrations that combine different scenes into one large setting – again was that something you used to solve an idea or something requested?

I think this came out of my love of Ever Meulen. He uses the pictorial image in such an interesting way. He’s not trying to draw a realistic scene but seeing the drawing as lines on paper. If you see the image like this then shapes can start to interact in fascinating and unexpected ways. I started out trying something like that as an experiment and for some reason this got some nice reactions from clients and has led to more of this work. I guess the thing to learn is that if you want clients to hire you to draw ‘x’ you better be drawing ‘x’…

Is there an area you’ve not worked in yet that you would like to? Any illustrator goals?

Probably it would be to do some illustrated books. The idea of developing something over a book length is very appealing. I’ve got a few ideas kicking around but I need to see if they have legs.

You seem to be very busy most of the time. I know recently you had to work whilst battling the flu – I know its not always possible but how important is it to try and take the time to relax and recharge – how do you like to unwind after a busy illustrative day?

This is a trick I would love to learn! I know I’m very eager to take a break and try out some new things. I managed to grab a week just before Christmas but it wasn’t enough. The plan this year is to turn a few things down and try and get more time to develop and think about what I’m doing. I love being an illustrator but naturally clients tend to give you work based on your portfolio. If you want to try something new you really need to give yourself the time to do it.

Lastly, what’s the one thing everyone should do today?

Dance around the living room to ‘Try to Understand’ by Lulu.

A big thanks to Steve for his time. Check out more of his work on his site and you can follow him on Twitter and Instagram.