This week we have an interview with artist Jeff Santos about all the lovely sketch art populated throughout the website and our design. Was really awesome to chat to Jeff another independent artist! You can help support Jeff and 'the world's best film' by visiting our online shop <3
1. What is your name and what do you do?
JS: My name's Jefferson Santos and I'm an illustrator.
2. Where did you grow up?
JS: I've always lived in the same city, Ribeirão Preto. It's a big city in the state of São Paulo. Although I intend to leave as soon as I can.
3. What was life like when you were a kid?
JS: My life has always been the same. Playing video games, dodging chores and drawing. I never had friends, the people I interacted with the most were my immediate family and a couple of cousins, but it's never been a problem to me. I've always been really happy being alone and unhappy around other people, so I'm just glad I was never really forced to interact with other kids that much.
4. How long have you been doing this? Did you know you always wanted to be an artist as a kid?
JS: Yeah, nothing else has ever really crossed my mind as a career. I did try to learn goldsmithing when I was little many times because that was my dad's profession, so it was always "there" for me to learn. But I really disliked it, so I always came back to drawing. And I did a lot of different things involving drawing, even tattooing. My family has a bunch of them from when I was practicing hahaha
5. When did you decide you first wanted to be an artist? JS: Well I never really decided, it was sort of decided for me. But when I was 20 I did hit a point where I thought "you know what? I'm gonna do this no matter what happens!" and I looked for a couple of weeks to find a gig drawing manga. Since I was little that's what I thought I wanted to do, because it was the most fun. But after doing only manga for a couple of years I realized it sucked! It's extremely exhausting and it pays next to nothing. I have real respect for manga artists but I would never want that lifestyle for myself. Eventually I found freelancing for character art, and I love it.
6. Can you describe your creative process for us? Do you hand sketch it first or how do you make your art? JS: Well it starts with the idea. So the client gives me a description of what they want, and I try to picture it in my head. Then I look up as many references as I can find for everything. Camera angles, poses, backgrounds, anything I can use to plan it out. I'd say about 30% of the times I can just work on top of a picture that has a pose and angle that match exactly the requirements. The other 70% of the time I gotta sketch something completely new, just using the references as a little help. From then on it's just drawing really.
7. Talk about some of the artwork you’ve made for ‘The World’s Best Film’ JS: Well the art for the movie was really fun! I haven't worked on anything like it yet, the first one was to take pictures of the people featured in the film and create an interaction between them, it was a fun exercise. We did it again a couple more times and it feels like a puzzle. To arrange everything aesthetically and make it work, it's frustrating and rewarding.
8. Was it easy or awful to work with Joshua ? :D
JS: It was as easy as it could've been. Joshua's really patient and unrestrictive. I've had clients that were so particular about how the drawings should look and made me revise the work a dozen times, not the case here at all. I really can't complain, it was a great experience.
9. What is important to you as an artist? JS: To me the most important thing is doing something new. I always try to stand out a bit, not do the same thing everyone else is doing.
10. What are some fun projects you are working on now that you can plug?
JS: There's one with an indie videogame that I'm waiting to come out, but I can talk about it until the developer announces it. I'm excited for that one!
11. Do you have a website that fans can check out ?
12. If you were ‘the world’s best’ at anything what would it be?
JS: I thought about it and I would be the world's best googler. If I can't find something on the internet, it's because it doesn't exist. I can't prove it but that's what I believe hahaha
13. Anything else you want to tell us? JS: Spread your wings and fly. You deserve to be a champion. 14. (Updated follow up) Why did you want to leave your hometown? JS: Oh, ok. I actually wanna leave Brazil, move to Europe, Portugal is my first plan. Brazil just sucks and is getting even worse, so I wanna jump ship and bring my immediate family with me. When I see people on Youtube showing how things are in Europe it's so incredible to compare to how things are here. It feels like I'm in one of the bad districts in Hunger Games and I'm watching people's videos in the Capitol hahaha Thanks for reading our first blog entry! We are happy to announce that you can now purchase some of Jeff's designs here. #independent #theworldsbest #worldsbestfilm #drawings #sketchart #conceptart #design #blackandwhite #artistinterviews #crewchat #TWBF #jeffsantos #artist