Vice Style

For the recent Monsters shoot, we took five of our favourite illustrators and asked them to do their thing on some photographs of a model in good threads. It's sort of half Ralph Steadman, half psychedelic Disney, and being a monster seems to be as good a fashion fantasy as any. We asked the illustrators about their twisted outlook on life, and if this was a result of their childhood.

Ziska

Vice: So you're 34 years old, how did you first get into drawing like this?
Ziska: I always wanted to learn art, but ended up graduating as a fashion designer and it's only now that I'm really getting back into it. I guess the design part of my education has been helpful, but working as a character designer for an Icelandic computer games company, CCP games, for three years has definitely helped too.

What was it that first got you interested in illustration and drawing, and where do you get your inspiration from?
My dad's old record covers really were the starting point. Things like Roger Dean's album art. He did the Uriah Heep and Yes covers. I also liked Meat loaf and Santana's Abraxax by Mati Klarwein, which is a masterpiece, and of course the Beach Boys "Surf's Up", which is based on James Earle Fraser's sculpture End of the Trail. Now my inspiration comes from everywhere, the cosmos even.

How do you come up with your ideas?
It's always so different, sometimes it is dissatisfaction in relationships, sometimes the opposite—pure joy. Or just feelings I need to get out of my system. It can be philosophical or just pure nonsense. I just keep my antennas tuned in and I find it comes to you.

What are you trying to get across with your work?
That's simple, I'm only doing it for me, and at the same time hoping some other people will enjoy it as well. Basically, I'm just having fun, and that's satisfying.

Margot Bowman


Vice: What was it that first interested you about drawing?
Margot: The fact that I knew I could draw and that it didn't need to look "real".

Have you always drawn or was it something you got into later?
I started doodling the outfits I was going to wear on the weekend, in my French lessons at secondary school.

Where do you get your inspiration from now, and how do you come up with ideas?
My inspiration comes from everywhere, really, and I think the best thing to do with an idea is to just start immediately. The first thing you produce won't be the final solution, but it's about shortening the distance between what's in your head and what you produce.

What are you trying to say with your work at the moment, and where do you want it to go?
That we can be in touch with more than one version of reality. And in the future I just want to keep doing as many things as possible that push my work and carry on building my own little Margot Bowman world.

AC Bananas


Vice: Hey AC Bananas—good name by the way—you're 29, have you always drawn?
AC Bananas: My father is an artist and I used to hang out in his studio when I was a kid and watch him paint/illustrate every chance I'd get. Then, a few hours later, I would run into my room and try to paint/illustrate better than him, so yes. In my opinion I still haven't reached his level and it is that that keeps me going.

What do you think it was that first interested you about illustration?
That you can basically do whatever the fuck you wanted. There are no limits, no boundaries at all.

Where do you get your inspiration from now?
I'm obsessed with death, I won't deny it. You can usually spot some kind of "deathism" in my work nowadays. Death is so fucking beautiful, but so sad at the same time. I guess we don't know that much about what happens in death, so not only does that inspire me but it keeps me motivated and creative.

OK, that's kind of dark. What do you want to get across with your work?
The same thing that inspired me to start drawing as a kid—that art has no boundaries and you can draw or paint or do whatever the fuck you're doing. On another level, personally, I just want to leave what goes through my mind behind me, after I'm gone for good. Again here we are with that thing we call death. I'm not that much of an art fart that stares at a shit on a stick for hours at a gallery, trying to analyse how much of a meaning that shit has, I just fucking love drawing and creating things, so as far as I keep on doing that I'm satisfied. Some people might not get my work but who the fuck cares, I know I don't.

How do you decide on your projects, and come up with the ideas?
Either you have it or you don't, that's about it. For me, I like to work on ideas and projects that are challenging for myself. I had shitloads of fun with the Monsters shoot, not only because it was my first official collaboration with my girlfriend, Saga, but I knew there were going to be other illustrators working on it that I admire, like Ziska, so I wanted to present something that's 100% me. I have so much stuff floating around my head that it just has to come out, I don't really have to slip into a brainstorming coma and force an idea onto a piece of paper.

What direction do you want to take it in the future?
I just want to continue to be creative before I get cremated.

Jess Cole


Vice: What first interested you about illustration?
Jess Cole: When i was a child I loved horror stories. Realising the pure terror an illustration could enduce probably sparked my interest.

So when did you start drawing?
Quite young, really. I got into drawing through classroom boredom, and doodling my daydreams instead of paying attention.

Where do you get your inspiration from?
My main source comes from the strange faces I see throughout the day. They get stored somewhere in my mind and released when I start to draw.

How do you decide on your projects and come up with the ideas?
Usually I begin to draw and ideas flow naturally, then I'll expand on parts of them. My favourite characters appear when I don't focus on them too much. Sometimes a theme will get stuck in my head, like right now it's "claustrophobic bunny", and the best way to release that is to draw.

What do you want to get across with your work and where are you going to take it in the future?
I'd like to get across a feel of familiarity and disgust, like you know these characters but wish you didn't. And in the future I want to expand those characters, get to know them better, and put them in dodgy situations to see how they react.

Stefan Schwartzman

Vice: Hi Stefan, how old are you?
Stefan: I hate my name and I'm 19.

When did you first start drawing?
I’ve been drawing since forever, it was just a natural thing to get into I guess. I wanted to be able to take all my sicko fantasies and make them real.

Where do you get your inspiration from?
Porn movies, violence and general grossness mixed with sex.

How do you decide on your projects and come up with the ideas?
Whatever seems fun and can advance my career.

What are you trying to get out there with your drawings?
A sense of lush perversity in extreme detail.

What direction do you want to take it in the future?
A more extreme one.

PHOTOS: SAGA SIG
STYLING: SAM VOULTERS
TEXT: WILLIAM OLIVER