I'm a twenty-something living and working in the UK. I worked freelance for a few years on some small, personal commissions found on the internet before enrolling on a two year Foundation Degree course in Illustration. After my first year I was selected for inclusion in the Association of Illustrations "Images 34" annual, published in 2010.

    I have a varying number of techniques to achieve the effects I use. Generally, for most things, I'll do a very rough-standard sketch in pencil first, and then ink and colour digitally using vector software for the initial stage, and then photoshop for colouring and textures. I prefer not to draw anything entirely digitally as I always feel it lacks that extra bit of life and soul, but I also don't like to do anything line-art based entirely by hand because working digitally allows you greater room for alterations and this has saved me on many an occasion!

     For some of my pictures I've also used enlarged scans of Quink blotches for colour and texture. This is created by simply blotting an entire A4 page with Quink, padding down certain areas before they dry and then scanning in tiny areas of the page where interesting patterns have emerged. I think my influence for using this technique would be the old Ren and Stimpy cartoons where backgrounds would often be replaced by odd, grungey blotches of colour!

     I also like to throw references to various things in a lot of what I do. It's not always possible but if you look at, for example, any crowded scene I've drawn then you'll see familiar faces popping up throughout them. I've been known to add myself and friends into illustrations!