Guest Post - Liam Sharp!

1) What was your first published work?
My first published work was in 'The Living Planet', from the celebrated 'Storm' series by Don Lawrence. I was Don's assistant and got to paint a few panels solo. Very exciting at the time! But the first Liam Sharp work was in 2000ad. I did a poster of Judge Dredd in a judges wig, Mr Justice Dredd, banging his gun like a hammer, and a three page Future Shock, the name of which escapes me...

2) Who or what inspires you?
Lord, where to begin? I've been inspired by so many things over the years! My first non-comic inspiration was probably Michelangelo - I spent forever pouring over images of the Cistine chapel, and his incredible sculptures. As with a lot of romantically inclined creators, I got wrapped up in the Preraphaelites, and Waterhouse, and that tends to lead you to Mucha, Schiele and Klimpt. Love Sargent too, when it comes to representative art. I also got into the American illustrators - Rockwell, Parrish, Wyeth, Pyle, Bama, and so on. Then there's industrial illustrators and designers like Syd Mead, and the loonacy of H.R.Giger... My art book library is pretty extensive, but it amazing how many creators have somehow been drawn to the same books...
Of people in the industry I've been inspired by Sienkiewicz, Moebius, Jeff Jones, Frazetta, Corben, Fabry, Manara, Don Lawrence, Bolland, Liberatore, Barry Smith, Kaluta, Jim Lee and Scott Williams, Kent Williams, and loads more. There are so many genius creators out there! You can never stop learning from them!

3) What would be your dream job to illustrate?
The only character I always wanted to write and draw and never have is Conan. Beyond that I'm most happy creating new material, new stories and new characters.

4) Tell us a bit about the illustration(s) you've sent?
I've included two of the pieces I created with Bill Sienkiewicz for our Sherlock Holmes story. These are portraits of Mycroft and the villain of the piece! We've done over 40 unique illustrations for 'The Greek Interpreter', with me pencilling, Bill inking, and me colouring - but it was way more organic than that sounds. Lots of back and forth. A complete joy. Working with Bill has been a career highlight and I'm incredibly proud of the results.
Also included are a couple of pages from my magnum opus, 'Captain Stone is Missing...'

5) What can we expect to see from you next (what are you working on)?
More Sherlock and more Captain Stone! I'm also writing Ben Wolstenholme's incredibly drawn MONO story for Madefire. All of these stories can be - or will be - viewed on the Madefire app (available free from the app store for iPhone, iPad, iPad mini, and iPod touch) or in the new Motion Book section on deviantART (http://browse.deviantart.com/motionbooks/)

6) If you hadn't become an artist what do you think you'd have ended up doing?
I'm lucky in that my other main ambition - to write - is something I'm now able to explore much more. I have a published novel, and another due out later this year, and write a lot for Madefire. Otherwise I'd have loved to direct movies - the dream of many artists! I make a fair bit of music too, which finally became another aspect I could incorporate into my work with the Madefire material. When I was a kid, though, I dreamed of becoming a zoologist, archaeologist, paleontologist or anthropologist... and you'd be amazed how many other artists I know who had those same childhood ambitions! I'm pretty much a cliche!

7) Where can we see more of your work (web links)?
http://www.madefire.com/
http://liamsharp.deviantart.com/
http://www.liam-sharp.com/