Interview
Dominic Carter talks to the concept pro about getting the most out of his sketchbooks, and the cusp of huge change facing artists
Nathan Fowkes
During the course of his stellar career, concept artist and teacher Nathan Fowkes has already witnessed huge changes in terms of how artists work. And while the industry is on the threshold of even bigger innovations, he explains to us how the humble sketchbook is still immensely valuable to students and professionals alike.
Tell us a little about your artistic background. How did you get started, and what path has your career taken?
My career has been such an interesting ride because I started back in the early 90s before the big animation and video game boom, and before concept art was really a thing. So no one was teaching those things, I just knew I wanted to do what I thought of as imaginative art.
Early on, going into art school at the Art Center College of Design based in Pasadena, I thought I would do things like book cover art and illustration, but then when I graduated in 1995, opportunities were starting to appear in entertainment art, and that was absolutely the place for me. Getting paid to do splashy, imaginative art? It’s exactly what I’d hoped to do.
I started out doing theme park show design at a company that contracted out to Disney, Universal and overseas theme parks, but two years into it I had an opportunity to show my portfolio at DreamWorks Animation. I’d always thought of animation as being too cartoony for the more painterly type of work I enjoy doing, but when I saw the development artwork DreamWorks was already doing for their epic The Prince of Egypt, I completely forgot about my theme park job and just had to get hired to work on this painterly and atmospheric epic. I made it onto the show and that was the crossroads of my whole career.
How has your art developed over the years, and what has been behind those changes?
I had to learn to become a better storyteller in my work, and I’ll tell you, I suffered some real beatdowns from directors until I figured out what it was my work was missing. Initially I was more of a scene painter and environment design artist. I’d paint what we call colour
