Interview with Steven Stahlberg

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I.A. - What would you like people who look at your artwork to feel?

S.S. - It depends on the artwork, but mostly positive feelings I guess, joy, happiness, perhaps a little sadness mixed in. Except for those that are supposed to be funny of course.

I.A. - Do you think you've influenced some new CG artists? What are your own influences ?

S.S. - Occasionally someone will email me and tell me I'm the reason why they started in CG. So I guess, in this way I influence people. My early artistic influences: Frank Frazetta, Gimenez and Hergé, Roger Dean... Later: Zorn, Heindel, Blackshear, Struzan, a couple colleague illustrators from way back... many more artists today, too many to list.

I.A. - Do you think a CG picture can succeed to bring a message or feelings thanks to lightning and colors.

S.S. - Lightning, definitely yes. Colors - maybe... but colors mean different things in different cultures, so it's tricky.intings orraphs?

I.A. - In what sense do you think you can create something different from the classical technique thanks to CG Tools?

S.S. - IMO thinking like this is a dead end. I don't think we can bring something very new to 2d still images today... slightly new, perhaps, by adding new technologies like stereovision, smellovision, ambient sound, or perhaps minor cycling animations (like in movie matte paintings); but visually, not really that much. It's all been done before. Just look at the book "American Illustrators" for the last 48 years. Also look at 13 years of "Spectrum" books, or in fact the last 100 years of art history. Digital tools are fantastic for inspiration, but there is no style, subject, technique, media left unexplored today. Or if there is, it's not worth exploring - like for instance, building towers out of used toothpicks.

I.A. - Can you speak about your creative process? Where do ideas come from? How do you develop them?

S.S. - The ideas just appears out of nowhere - a picture pops up in my brain like in a slide show. But they don't come easily, I have to work hard. I have to be in a certain mood, alone, and I have to get MANY ideas, before I can find one that's any good at all. Developing them is then straightforward - the first sketch is very rough, as I'm just trying to record the idea quickly so I won't forget it and I can move on to the next idea. But the vision in my mind is usually quite refined from the start. So, I just work on the sketch and try to make it as close as possible to the original vision.

I.A. - Finally, if you were asked to create your own interpretation of one of your favorite artist artwork, what would it be? why ?

S.S. - Carlos Gimenez' Delta 99 perhaps, or Hergé's Tintin. I have nostalgic childhood memories of them... and they're very 2d in their styles, it might be interesting to see how close I could get in 3d.

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