Meet Vimes Art | Illustrator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Vimes Art and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Vimes Art, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?

My work life balance has changed a lot over time. When I first started freelancing I would just work non stop. I felt I had a lot to prove and was dedicated to reaching my goals. I’m passionate about learning and love developing my art skills,so when I wasn’t working I’d be spending my free time studying and practicing my craft. This was how I spent my first few years freelancing, basically just work,study repeat. I think I must have watched only about a handful of films and tv shows in that entire time, my free time and “non productive” hours had been reduced to almost nothing. I thought this was the way, as it seems to be the path so many take. There’s a strong culture in our society of glorifying this kind of overwork, it’s seen as a badge of honor if you pull an all-nighter or work all weekend.

After a few years of this lifestyle, I just realized I was gradually becoming more and more miserable, to the point of almost burning out. At some point I just had to step back and be like, what do I want from life? Is being chained to my desk drawing all day really going to make me happy? I love art and I love drawing but doing nothing but art 24/7 slowly saps the joy out of it for me, as well as taking a toll on your mental health and relationships. I started with a burning passion for art not just because of art itself, but because I was experiencing life. Going to a new place and seeing the beautiful English countryside,reading books, watching films would all fill my head with ideas and inspiration that fed into my drive to make art in the first place. When I cut them out in place of working non stop, it’s no wonder I was losing my joy for art.

So now I try to focus more on my values as a person than just my goals. I still work hard and study many hours, but I also realize that there’s more to life. Reaching your goals whilst fulfilling is also somewhat empty. Once you reach the top of one mountain, you see another in the distance and it’s straight on to climbing the next one. There’s no magic moment where you feel you’ve made it and you’re living this dream happy life as an artist. What I value in life isn’t just art, its spending time with loved ones, going for walks in the country, leisure time where I can read books, play games , listen to music etc.This is what makes me happy, a life that is balanced and allows me to follow my values as a person, pursuing my passion for art , but also allowing myself time for rest and living.

Nowadays I’m keeping a much better balance and feel so much better for it. I try to keep a scheduled amount of hours and stick to it. I set a certain amount of hours for my work , then crucially I also set some hours in the evening for rest. I will actually force myself to take hours off even if I feel like I could work more, as I know in the long run it’s easy for work to overtake again. I think it’s really crucial to understand how important rest is and to treat taking rest as seriously as you treat doing your work. You will likely end up actually more productive,and most importantly more fulfilled and happy.

There are some great books at that really helped me realize the importance of this, so if anyone else is facing similar struggles I’d recommend reading: Laziness does not exist- Devon Price, Rest: Why you get more done when you work less- Alex Pang, Four thousand Weeks- Oliver Burkman and The End Of Burnout by Jonathan Malesic

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
For me art has always been about capturing a moment in time. Ideas often come to me as almost a movie still in my mind, a frozen moment in time. A lot of the process of my art is trying to get the feeling of that moment as close as I can onto canvas. That’s certainly what I feel the overall goal of my art is, to capture something that feels like a moment in time or a memory, as if you had lived the experience yourself. I really like to focus on trying to capture a feeling rather than just Illustrate an idea .

I would also say obsessiveness when it comes to getting things just right probably sets my art apart. When this is working well it enables me to get some real subtleties in my art that I think really helps the image connect with people. When it’s working against me I can end up getting stuck in perfectionism and wasting time in areas that don’t make a big difference to the overall work, so it’s a bit of a double edged sword.

Getting to where I am today certainly wasn’t easy. I’m largely self taught using online classes and books, so it was a tricky process learning how to guide my studies from amateur to professional. The information out there can be overwhelming, I was so passionate (obsessive) and eager to learn though, that it wasn’t a problem for me to sort through it. Over the years through trial and error along with just sheer dedication and willpower , I kept working away , finding and studying the most essential information, developing good habits and study methods to get where I am today.

I remember how much of a struggle it was at the start and how long it took me to realize the level of dedication and work required. I think the biggest point on that journey and just my artistic journey overall was my mentorship under Craig Mullins who just blew my mind with his knowledge,insane work ethic and attention to detail in art. It was a real dream moment being able to take mentorship with him. Here was this industry legend, an artist who’s worked on some of my favorite games and films, whose paintings were part of why I even became an artist in the first place. It was such an amazing experience , he really showed me what being a professional truly was and opened my mind to a whole new way of seeing the world and art.

His attention to detail would just blow my mind every time. He would be painting a road, but instead of just copying it, he would be talking about how the colors were changing because of the different materials used to make it, why it curved this way or that because of how it was constructed. He would be painting a shirt but telling you why the folds looked how they did because some underlying piece of anatomy was causing it. We were looking at the same subjects but seeing very different things. He had such a deep knowledge of every subject he was painting ,it opened me up to a whole new way of seeing not just art but the world. I had never looked that deeply before and it was fascinating.

My studies previously had mainly followed the atelier method of drawing what you see and not analyzing it. Treating it more as a flat shape your job is to measure and copy. Whilst this was hugely important in my development as an artist, it left me feeling kind of empty after a while. It was essentially switching your mind off to a large degree, whereas Mullins taught me the opposite. I think he described himself along the lines of “using art as a medium to study the world.” Which is an approach I’ve taken very much to heart in my art since.

I’m so thankful that I had those mentorships with craig because it opened my mind to this whole new way of seeing art and appreciating the world. It became a much more enriching experience than simply copying what you see. It also helped me push my work ethic to the next level and has inspired me to start working on my own art classes, sharing my knowledge I learned under Craig’s mentorship so hopefully others can learn this way of seeing too.

When I look back on the journey of my art I think that developing the discipline and work ethic required to reach a professional level is one of the things I’m most proud of. The skills required from going from casually studying here and there to a disciplined daily schedule of work and study is something that has helped me in all aspects of my life.

Once you realize you can do what you put your mind to, it kind of opens up your world to all kinds of possibilities. You realize that what seemed impossible is achievable . All it takes to learn a new skill or even become professional at almost anything ,is just the process of studying the right information and crucially applying it. It’s not about talent and genius, it’s about working smart, working hard and not giving up.

My advice for anyone else self teaching would be 2 things, first to focus on fundamental skills, find out those core skills that everything else rests on, learn to bake the cake before you learn to ice it. Second, developing good habits, just sitting down and drawing regularly is most of the battle, once it becomes habit it is so much easier to build upon it. So even if you only start with 15 minutes a day, just stick to it and 15 will soon become 30 and before you know it you’ll be working many more hours than you first thought was possible.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Well I live in Kent which has so many great places all within reach. I love to go for walks in nature and do a spot of birdwatching whilst I’m there. So I would take them on a kind of “essentials” English countryside and seaside tour, with the occasional stop for birdwatching!. We have a great system here of signposted national walks, so I would choose a few of them to walk on and show them the lovely rolling hills and classic countryside, with some stops for lunch along the way.

One of the walks around here is the Pilgrims trail to Canterbury Cathedral, as mentioned in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. I would definitely go for a day out in Canterbury, there’s a great cycle route to it and the drive there is very scenic too. However you get there, Canterbury is a beautfiul old medieval town full of cobbled streets and features an amazing cathedral, also a great place to get some nice food!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
As cheesy as it is I have to shout out to my mum and family for being so incredibly supportive to me through the years, without their help I would never have been able to make my life as an artist.

My girlfriend Claudie has been amazingly supportive ever since I met her and has helped me grow so much as a person. I’m so thankful for having her in my life.

Artistically speaking there’s 2 artists I’d like to mention, John Hardesty and Craig Mullins. John’s classes on schoolism were where I really learned my fundamentals of art, his course is amazing and I highly recommend it. He is such a great teacher and understanding person, who really helped me out when I was first getting serious about my art.

I think the biggest impact to my art overall though has to be Craig Mullins. I was lucky enough to take some mentorships with Craig Mullins and those were artistically life changing. He taught me a whole new way of seeing art and in many ways, the world. I can’t recommend highly enough his teachings and if you ever have the opportunity for a mentorship with him, jump at the chance!

Website: www.vimesart.com

Instagram: @vimesart

Twitter: @vimesart

Other: https://www.artstation.com/vimes

Image Credits
Vimesart