Brian Biggs
| Brian Biggs, Illustrator, Philadelphia, PA www.mrbiggs.com Hi, I'm Brian Biggs and I'm an illustrator who lives and works in a big drafty house in Northwestern Philadelphia. I share the house with my two magical children and our two large, bored cats. I've been working mostly on children's books for the last few years. I also do a lot of editorial work, various product things and some animation now and then. My studio consists of the two small rooms on the top floor of the house. I've been in this space since 2001 and after a major renovation this last summer, it's finally a place that I really enjoy spending the majority of my time. For someone who freelances at home, I believe this to be an important prerequisite. It's a cozy space, but I'm looking forward to getting a studio outside my house, hopefully later this year. I'd like to have more room for larger painting, printing, and animation projects. I kind of refer to the two rooms as the analog and the digital rooms. First on display here is the analog room. This is where I do all my drawing and reading and scheming.  The drawing table is a huge old drafting table bought at a flea market in San Francisco. The smaller drawing board was designed by my brother and me and built by him. Last summer I installed the giant bulletin board material. This allows for a rotating display of whatever is currently inspiring me, and whatever I'm currently working on. The tv is not a guilty pleasure, but rather a lifeline when I'm way up on the third floor late nights. It's attached to a DVD player (not pictured).  The bulk of my work consists of india ink on paper via brush, which I color in Photoshop. But I've been playing more in other analog materials lately. Acrylic, inks, and something called "acrylagouache." The old Coca-Cola case is full of colored inks, and the little drawers on the shelf hold various pencil leads, erasers, and pen nibs from the olden days.  The utility shelves aren't pretty. But they hold the all-important file bins full of sketches, manuscripts, and various other ephemera from the books I am illustrating. The framed poster was designed for Top Shelf Comics in 1997, the bike helmets are from a project for Bell Helmets, and the card racks on top hold an assortment of promo cards.  The big red reading chair is typically full of a cat. The book shelves behind it hold copies of the books I've illustrated, reference books for current projects, and my beloved French children's books.  This is the top of another bookshelf. Illustrators are somewhat required to have collections of some kind of toys, and I'm no exception. This is a small part of the larger pile, and includes an Evel Knievel die-cast metal rocket, Ultraman, some plastic animals, and a cool metal passenger rocket. The photo is of Ann Margret and Elvis in rehearsals for Viva Las Vegas. This particular bookshelf consists entirely of graphic novels. Now, if you'll follow me... The digital room is where the majority of the actual work gets done. While everything I do starts with pencils and inks, it all gets completed on the Mac.  I currently run a G5 iMac. I have several backup hard drives for archiving. To the left of the iMac is a turntable I use for listening to old 45s, and also for sampling loops and beats for my secret life as an electronic band. You can see a small keyboard under the laser printer used for the same purposes. The desk is a solid wooden door I painted yellow and rigged with plumbing-pipe legs and large casters for easy rolling. Back in the bad old days of SCSI and Syquest Drives, one had to frequently get behind one's Mac to troubleshoot. This is no longer a problem. The stools came from the biology lab at Stanford University. They are incredibly comfortable to sit in for an entire day.  These flat files sit behind me while I work at the computer. They were "reclaimed" from a dumpster behind an office in San Jose, California and contain my illustration and comics originals, collected posters, pads of paper, old magazines, and I'm not sure what else. The plywood surface was stained to match the door/desk and makes a good surface on which to cut and glue stuff. And in case you're wondering, yes, it's ALWAYS this clean and organized... Sure...  This protective totem was left by the studio's previous tenant, my ex wife. In the summer, around 2:00pm, the sun hits the window just right and the skull is projected onto the floor. It's freaky. |