From the course: Von Glitschka: The Making of an Illustrative Designer

Childhood

- [Announcer] This is an audio course. Thank you for listening. - [Instructor 1] Take me back. Do you remember the first time you realized that you really liked drawing or like did you have something that you drew a lot of? - [Instructor 2] Growing up I remember sitting when "Star Wars" came out, I was still in about, I think I was sixth grade at that point but I would listen to the "Star Wars" talking record which is just the dialogue for the whole movie and just draw pictures. You know, me and my friend sitting on our floor, drawing pictures, listen to the - [Instructor 2] What were the sorts of things you drew 'cause I love drawing the Millennium Falcon. What did you draw? - [Instructor 2] It'd be Darth Vader. Yeah, so like in sixth grade like halfway through sixth grade, I was known for drawing Darth Vader in seven seconds. - [Instructor 1] Really? - [Instructor 2] Yeah and then there was this friend of mine, Brett. He had seen the "Star Wars" movie. Like mind you no video at that time or anything online and he went and saw the movie like 40 sometimes so yeah he was and he drew all the time too but he was one of those kids that pushed way too hard with the pencil so it was like super Like, it almost embosses the drawing on the paper - [Instructor 1] Yeah. - [Instructor 2] But he could draw TIE fighters really good. But yeah, it was Darth Vader I always drew. Before that it was always, Japanese TV when I was really young was just starting to push their cartoons on the American audience. So "Speed Racer" was one I really liked and "Marine Boy" which is another somewhat obscure one. When I was in middle school it was "Star Blazers" and so I always drew those because I liked them. But growing up, I remember a neighborhood kid his dad subscribed to Mad Magazine and then he would give his old ones to his son. And then his son shared one with me and I was just enthralled by it. I mean, it had art all in it and I'd read it and the humor cracked me up, but it was all subversive and my parents hated it. I'd tell my mom, hey, can you get me Mad Magazine? No, I'm not buying that. You don't need to be reading that stuff, it's trash. And so I would use my allowance and go down buy Mad Magazine and just hide it and so my parents - [Instructor 1] Fantastic. - [Instructor 2] Wouldn't see it. Yeah, that had a huge influence on me. Sergio Aragonese is one of the artists. - [Instructor 1] Was he the Spy vs Spy artist too? - [Instructor 2] No he's the one that would draw in the margins all the little battle scenes going on and stuff. - [Instructor 1] Yeah. - [Instructor 2] I just loved his artwork. So that was a big influence on just to show me that, wow there's people out there who are making money doing artwork but the first time I kind of locked in and kind of comprehended that there's, art can be used for a commercial purpose was my dad had just bought a new product to polish his car or whatever. It was armor all and it was right when it came out and it had that cool little Viking dude on it. (water splashing) So when I went outside, I was just watching my dad, I picked up the bottle and I'm looking at it. I go, that's a cool Viking guy. And then I was kind of thinking, okay so somebody's doing some kind of artwork and I wonder about that. That's when I first ever really thought about it from that kind of context. And then I just knew I didn't want to go to college and do college level math. So when the art college visit or high school that was very attractive to me. So that's how I ended up going to. It was the Burnley School of Art when I went to it. And then they got bought out by The Art Institute and kind of morphed over the two years I was there.

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