Interview with Mike Austin aka HumanNature84

posted by: Iaroslav Lazunov, in Articles / Interview/ Comments: 0

Our guest today is a great vector artist and owner of Vectorlogy — Mike Austin. " The artist must understand that they are on a personal artistic journey, so comparing their progress against others is useless. Focus on YOUR strengths!” — he says. Learn more about Mike and his illustrations after the jump.

Hi Mike, welcome to the Vectortuts+. Tell us a little bit about yourself, where are you from, how and when did you start doing vector graphics?

Well where do I start? I’m a California native and I currently live in Texas. I graduated from Platt College in Ontario California with a focus on graphic design. I’ve been working with vector graphics since 2004 and I taught myself illustration and figure drawing. I enjoy teaching and helping other people achieve success with the vector medium and discover the true potential of what vector can do.

What does vector graphics mean for you today, is it your first job or hobby? Do you have special education or are you self-taught?

Today, I’m very deep in the vector medium. I’ve just begun to crack open Ai CS6 and its been a great pleasure learning this new version from the inside out. I’m mostly self-taught in the illustration department, but I’m trained as graphic designer. The graphic design training has really helped me to balance my compositions as well as working with complex elements in a scene.

Undoubtedly you can be called a teaching artist, because you share your skills with vector world. What do you think are the main stages of an artistic education?

Well, it really depends on the artist and what direction he/she wishes to travel. For the most part, I really emphasize attitudes and ideas towards learning. This is the biggest problem I see when artist are trying to develop his or her craft is over obsessing over their lack of talent (or the overabundance of others) resulting in feeling of "I can’t make it” or "I just don’t have what it takes”.

Three things must happen in the artist mind before he or she can build a strong work ethic and succeed in his or her craft:

The artist must understand that it takes time to develop any skill (sometimes a very long time).
The artist must understand that they are on a personal artistic journey, so comparing their progress against others is useless. Focus on YOUR strengths!
The artist (if self-taught) must be willing to gather his or her own learning materials and devote much of their time examining the information and digesting the material (at least one hour a day).