© Neil hooson

1. Let’s start off by telling our visitors a bit about yourself. So what can you tell us about the vector machine that is Neil Hooson?

Hmm… I don’t know what to tell you. I’m a workaholic father of 2 and husband of 1. I managed to come back to vector despite my intial exposure to it being a hasty learning of CorelDRAW 3 for a job interview (they made me demonstrate my abilities, and I blew it).

2. So you are working for Teletoon, what’s that like? What exactly do you do there and are there any projects we can view?

Working at Teletoon (and Family Channel) is really cool – it takes a while to get used to seeing your work on TV all the time. It’s funny because, a few months before I applied for the job, I was watching Teletoon and checking out the interstitial material and I thought, “I should try to freelance for them.� So, I sent an e-mail to the general information address, asking for the contact info for the Art Director. I never heard back . . . . until after I got the job! And even then, I just got a form letter telling me how to pitch shows to the network. I literally received that e-mail in my first week there, which was pretty bizarre.

The kind of projects I do are a little different depending upon which network I’m working for (I’m a ‘shared employee’). For Teletoon, it is largely marketing promotions like co-sponsored contests, spots for our web site, larger promotions (like Camp Teletoon and Wired Weekends), etc… Fairly often, I get to do illustrations for my promos, and occasionally do character designs. For Family, it’s largely branding for the network (bumpers) and show promos. For all work, the key software of choice is Adobe After Effects.

I do have some samples up on my web site:
Camp Teletoon (2005):

Wired Weekends (2005):
Teletoon Heroes (2004):

3. You used to live here in lovely British Columbia and now you have moved to Alberta for Teletoon, how do you like living working in Alberta (Canada)?

Ha ha! Stop rubbing it in!!! Actually, Alberta has grown on me quite a bit. I do miss BC quite a bit because that’s where my friends and family are, but it really came down to a career choice that I would regret forever if I didn’t take. The weather makes it hard to believe you’re living in the same country!

4. Since you are working full time now…what can you tell us about pointblank studios? Do you still freelance, or has pointblank become more of a personal portfolio site?

Point Blank Studios is the company name I freelance under. I’ve freelanced pretty steadily since 1997, going to the Point Blank name in 1998 when I was working on a piece for the National Film Board of Canada.

I do still freelance quite a bit, but the projects I’m currently working on aren’t finished yet so I can’t update my site.

5. I have always been a huge fan of Trailer Park Boys, and you did a piece with the main characters. Was this done for fun? Was it ever published?

The TPB piece was done purely for fun. After I finished it, I thought it would be fun to get some feedback from other TPB fans, so I posted it at the main TPB message board. I also dug through the usenet archives and came up with an e-mail address for TPB creator/writer/director Mike Clattenburg and sent it his way. I was quite surprised to receive a very flattering reply the next day!

The piece did end up getting published in Hollywood North Magazine in exchange for free advertising and copies of the magazine. Never did receive my copies – I’m glad I bought one for myself!

I also did two other TPB illustrations that aren’t on my site (the style doesn’t match the first one I did) of Cory and Sarah , both of whom sent me e-mails saying how much they liked them. I later received an e-mail from Lucy Decoutere who said more of the same. They seem like a good bunch of people, although I never did hear from ‘Ricky’, ‘Julian’ or ‘Bubbles’. Maybe one day….

6. What is main application for doing vector illustration?

I’m pretty much split between Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Flash. It really depends on my mood. Let’s say Illustrator so that I can answer the next question easily . . .

7. What do you like most about these vector programs?

Global swatches. Being able to create a colour, give it a name, and have the flexibility to adjust that colour even when your illustration is finished, is so powerful. I wish Macromedia would introduce this feature into Flash (especially since Illustrator and Toonboom Studio already offer this functionality).

Gradients and gradient meshes are my next favourite feature

The brush tool would be my third and, I promise, final favourite feature. Love being able to adjust the stroke width of the brush after the fact and have it affect all instances of that stroke in your illustration (or not, if you wish).

8. I think I speak for most red-blooded males that you have a certain knack for drawing the female form…how does your wife feel about this? ;)

Thanks! Drawing women has always been a struggle for me, so I’m glad I’m going something right!
As for my wife, she’s cool with it but doesn’t necessarily want to put any of my ladies on the walls of our house. ;)

9. How hard is it for an artist to break into the industry you are in? What kind of steps did you take or would you suggest for those looking to get into the illustration/multi-media/animation field?

I think it can be pretty difficult to get into this industry, depending on your drive and willingness to learn. If you talk to any successful designers, they will usually tell you that they are one of the few people from their school that ‘stuck with it’ and is still in the industry. I know that is certainly the case with myself.

I really wouldn’t suggest getting into the field in the way I did – it was quite roundabout and not planned at all. I went through college with thoughts of becoming an architect but once my grades started to slip, I knew my chances of ending up in that career were slim. So I gravitated towards the sciences and wound up graduating with a Bachelor of Sciences in Mathematics. During my last year of college, my parents saw an ad for a local school that offered a summer computer animation school. This was when digital animation was really taking off so I decided to go for it.

After graduating from that program, I freelanced for a year (bad idea – the mere thought of cold-calling gave me excruciating stomach pains) before I came to my senses and took a job at a local internet publishing company as an HTML slinger (a skill I picked up while freelancing). I ended up edging my way into this company’s graphics department after 9 months and did that for another 4 years.

From there, I applied for a position as “Motion Designer� for Teletoon and Family Channel, and that’s where I am today!

One thing that has served me well is my continual freelance activity, not just for supplemental income but for learning new skills and getting my name out there. I would also recommend that any aspiring designer learn how to make a web page, whether with HTML or some of the WYSIWYG editors out there. There’s no simpler way to market yourself than with a portfolio site that you can update yourself. I would also recommend getting involved in some of the many online art communities out there. It’s a great way to meet other artists and a lot of agents and potential clients look through the boards for art that catches their eyes.

10. I see a lot of zany characters in your work, obviously this is something you really enjoy doing …where do you get your ideas?

I typically get my ideas from people I see in real life. There’s almost always some character on the drive to work, and there is *always* inspiration at your local Wal Mart or the like. I guess ‘character’ is my main inspiration: trying to describe a personality through visual representation. That’s why I love character design so much!

11. Do you have any tips tricks or hand shortcuts that you use and would like to share with us in Flash/Illustrator?

Flash: set up a keyboard shortcut for the Modify->Smooth command. Then when you draw with the pressure-sensitive brush tool and end up with lumpy lines, just lasso the area you don’t like, hit your “Smooth� shortcut a few times and you’re in business!

Illustrator: I find myself making lots of duplicates of shapes, for doing cutouts with Pathfinder, separating lines from fills, etc…. Hold down ‘Alt’, hit the “Up� arrow, let go of ‘Alt’, hit the “Down� arrow. This way you end up with an exact duplicate of your shape, in the original position.

Now, if someone could tell *me* about a way of getting your Flash art into Illustrator without losing curve quality (Copy -> Paste does this), strange colour shifts (AI export from Flash does this), and separating gradients into my strips of colour (both methods do this), I’ll be a happy man. Hopefully the answer will be Flash 8!

12. I am sure you are an inspiration for many young artists out there, so who inspires you?

I’d love to think that people find some of my work inspiring! It would be hard to have a better compliment than that!

As far as inspiration for me, they are typically from animation or comics: Chuck Jones, Maurice Noble, Genndy Tartakovsky, Craig McCracken, Aaron Springer, Mary Blair, Brad Bird, John Kricfalusi, Jim Smith, Bill Wray, Shane Glines, Dean Yeagle, Jack Cole, etc…

I also find many of the artists and friends I’ve come to know over the years to be major sources of inspiration: Alberto Ruiz, Gary Ham, Celia Calle, Paige Pooler, Scott Tolleson, Kevin Leebroderick, Rosanne Lambert, Chris Arlidge (yeah, yeah, yeah), Brandon Dalton, Pasquale LaMontagna, Doug Gray, Katie Rice, Jim Cliffe, Lisa Redfern, Greg Brightwell, Kris Oel, Kevin Mones, Adam Duguay, etc…

Just everybody, really. I get inspiration from all over the place.

13. What kind of music do you listen to? Do you prefer a certain type of music to work to?

Showtunes. All Broadway, all the time. ;)

Actually, I like music with big guitar (I also like to play electric guitar) so I listen to a lot of harder alternative stuff, punk, metal, etc… I also like big orchestral movie soundtrack music like Lord of the Rings, X-Files, any John Williams stuff, Danny Elfman stuff, etc… So, I like the stuff that’s at opposite ends of the spectrum, and not a lot of what’s in the middle.

Something like the latest System of a Down album is good for getting me pumped and allowing me to blast through work.

14. How many hours a week do you think you draw on your own…for fun or self-projects?

This one’s easy: zero.
Right now, all my drawing is for freelance projects and there isn’t really time for much else. Luckily, I basically get to art direct these projects, so they are almost personal projects.

Once I get a bit of a reprieve from my current workload, I will be getting back to working on some of my animated series pitches and doing a bunch of artwork for those. So, I guess you could consider those to be personal projects.

I would really love to get into more traditional artwork like painting and ink but the time just isn’t there right now (especially since baby #2 just arrived 2 months ago)!

15. If you were given a blank cheque to purchase one painting for your home, and it had to be painting (no trade ins – and you can’t sell it after ; ) what painting would you choose, and why?

Hmmm….. I’m sure most people would want a Picasso or Van Gogh, but I would probably get the most enjoyment out of a Maurice Noble original. Like one of the gorgeous backgrounds for How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Well thanks very much Neil for sharing your time with us and best of luck for you moving forward with family and career. :)