3dTotal: Hi Rich! Just been reading up on you, let’s see ... Montana, art school, Guild Wars, comic books, skateboarding (is your life flashing in front of you now!?) and what’s this? Flaptraps? Do people really call you that? And do you really talk that much?
Rich: [Laughs] Well not a lot of people - just some old friends I grew up with. There was this kid I used to go skating with, Mike, who gave all of my friends nicknames and that one ended up being mine (because apparently I talked a lot). I don’t think I talk that much, but it’s up to the person listening I guess. And now that I think about it, a lot of people I work with would probably agree with Mike’s assessment!
    
   


3dTotal: What’s the environment like in your studio? Is there constant chatter all the time or are people giving it maximum silent concentration?
Rich: It depends; sometimes we’ll all be talking about something (usually completely nerdy), then all the sudden we’ll all snap into the super work-zone mood. If I’m having trouble with a project or a piece I tend to shut up and concentrate more, but if things are going my way with it, I’ll usually carry on the conversation about the crack fox, or who would win, Batman or Super Man? Something stupid like that.

3dTotal: Super portfolio you have there, it’s a real pleasure to browse. The one thing that springs to mind is that your images are definitely not overworked in places; they are still very sketchy, yet as a whole they seem to be complete. Can you help the readers out and make any sense of what I just said!?
Rich: Well, I’ll try [Laughs]. I think that’s naturally what I’m more attracted to in most of the art that I’m a fan of. A lot of pieces and artists that I like have this great style of contrasting certain parts that they want the
viewer to really focus on, with other parts that they want to seem more organic and have a “work-in-progress” feeling to them.

3dTotal: So do you think it’s important to know when a piece is finished? And do you know this yourself?
Rich: Actually, I’m not really sure when a piece is finished. Sometimes I’ll think I’m done and ready to move on, then the next day I come in and realise what I want to change or work on more etc etc. But yeah, it’s important to know when you’re finished or not. My art director Daniel Dociu is always saying “Don’t over-work it!” Which is good
   
 
    advice, because it’s easy to kill a piece of work by throwing too much at it.

3dTotal: Limited colour palettes often seem to play a big part in your work, would you agree with this? And how do you go about choosing and defining them?
Rich: Honestly, unless I’m really work off some point of reference that I particularly like the colours in, I kind of just go with
 
 


what works and feels right to me. Really, the more colours you work with, the harder it gets and I think I really kind of “puss out” in that department [Laughs].

3dTotal: Is your colour palette generally defined when you start or does it evolve along the way?
Rich: Oh it totally evolves along the way. I play with different colours all the time. Although if I get a certain assignment, say, a snow scene or something, then I might use a snow scene painting that I particularly like for a colour reference. Or sometimes I’ll just grab an old painting of mine that I liked the colours and textures in, and play with the layers and colour balance in Photoshop until I get something I like.
    
     
 
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