Hello Shamblers, now, I know I’ve had some cool interviews- but you’re gonna love this one!
From his Bio: Wayne Reynolds was born in Leeds, UK, and attended art college in Dewsbury and Middlesborough, leaving with a HND Distinction. After a spell alternating freelance work (Chaosium, Iron Crown Enterprises) with work for a sign painting company, he settled for a few years as a concept artist in the computer games industry. However, the lure of freelance art proved too strong, and Wayne returned to work as an independent illustrator in 1998.
I have been lucky enough to know this man for YEARS, yet only recently did I get the brainstorm to actually interview him for the site. Hey, no one said I was a SMART Zombieking…
He is probably most known for his work with Wizards of the Coast on D&D (v3.5, v4, ‘Eberron’, ‘Forgotten Realms’, miniatures) and also Magic; The Gathering. His work has been seen on commissions for; Paizo (‘Pathfinder’, ‘Dragon’ and ‘Dungeon’ magazines) Reaper Minatures, Green Ronin (‘Freeport’) Osprey Publishing, Games Workshop (‘Redeemer’, ‘Kal Jerico’), 2000AD (the 2000AD comic, plus ‘Futureshocks’, ‘Slaine’, and ‘Judge Dredd’), Online Games Company. Ladies and Gentlemen: my friend Wayne Reynolds!
ZI: Heya Wayne! Thanks for taking the time to chat… sorry it took so long for me to get off my ass to get you to do it!
WR: No problem. Always happy to talk to you.
ZI: Ok, so while I have a little insight on your background and preferences- my readers aren’t so I’ll ask a few things to cover that off for them… How long have you been doing this, and what is your preferred medium to work in?
WR: I’ve been doing commercial artwork for about 18 years. I initially started out as a cartoonist (I specialised in cartoon and animation work at college) My first game illustrations were done in 1992 for a UK Play-by-mail game called ‘The Keys of Medokh’. I used to work mainly in black and white and didn’t really start working in colour until I returned to freelance illustration in 1998. I now work exclusively in acrylic paint on 3mm art-board.
ZI: I know you draw inspiration mostly from inside of your head (and base it on what direction you get from art departments) but what outside influences have poked your mind… Movies? Books? The lady at the bookstore with the huge mole on her cheek?
WR: That’s a tricky one to answer. My usual answer to this question is that I get my ideas from where everyone else gets ideas from; Movies, television, comics, mythology, etc. Though I guess it’s the way I process the images I see in my mind and apply them to my artwork that’s different to everyone else. I like to push images to a (hopefully) believable extreme but in order to do that I find it’s important to know what things look like in real life before I embellish or warp armour, landscape or anatomy to the utmost. There are certain things that I study more intensely than others such as natural history, military history, historical costumes/weapons/armour and historical fighting techniques.
Movies are both a form of relaxation and a potential source of inspiration. A good way for me to wind down at the end of an intense day of drawing or painting is to sit down – check my brain out – and watch a movie. At the same time I get to absorb how things look and move in a cinematic way as opposed to real life. That way I can bring both aspects to my artwork. (I tend to go for fictional genres; sci-fi, horror, epic historical as well as the occasional comedy or animation)
My brain is almost like a camera that’s constantly taking mental photographs of everything I look at. In addition, I tend to view everything as a
potential illustration. Analysing each visual aspect to see if it would make a great picture. If I think a particular bow of a tree trunk would be a great place for an elf/goblin/dragon to squat or that lady’s mole is particularly huge – I take a photograph with an actual camera and file it away for future use.
ZI: While you work in the gaming industry, do you yourself ever game? If so, what do you enjoy playing?
WR: I prefer role-playing games and table-top miniature games. I’ve been playing D&D since I was 13 or 14. I played quite a lot of different role-laying games since then; Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer FRP, Legend of the 5 Rings, Dark Heresy, Pathfinder, Star Wars, Stormbringer, Skyrealms of Jorune, Fading Suns, Runequest, Shadowrun, Vampire, Mage….. To name a few.
Miniature games appeal to me because I particularly enjoy painting miniatures.
ZI: I’ll ask the standard question- Do you prefer fast or slow zombies, and why?
WR: It just depends what you mean by “prefer”. In the event of a Zombie Armageddon I’d prefer it if the zombies were slow moving because I reckon I could survive longer.
Zombies are by far one of the most scariest movie monsters I have ever seen. Slow or fast moving – they scare the crap out of me! However, I’m still morbidly drawn to still to the whole zombie genre – movies and comics.
I think it’s the idea that anyone could turn into a monster. Not just the degeneration of fellow human beings but that friends and neighbours could become a relentless pursuing wave. Driven purely by deadly instinct that cannot be reasoned with. (I once heard a theory that the zombie movies in the 1970’s were a reflection of the fear of communism in America. That your friends or neighbour could be secretly a communist) “Night of the Living Dead” (Black and white version) Gave me nightmares for days after I first saw it. “28 Days Later” had a similar effect on me. (I know that technically the ‘monsters’ of the movie were plague victims instead of zombies but they still evoked the kind of terror that a zombie plague inflicts) I thought the filmmakers definitely increased the zombie fear level by making them move faster. It worked amazingly well in that instance. However, I felt that subsequent films involving fast moving zombies were not as successful. Perhaps zombies from shambling to feral predators too often will diminish the fear factor as fast-moving zombies become the norm through overuse. I still have a fondness for the sinister shuffle of a slow moving zombie because even though you could outrun them easier there is the persistent dread that they’d inevitably catch up with you.
ZI: A bunch of your work has a ‘dark’ side to it- do you prefer to work on this type of piece…or is it just happenstance?
WR: I think it’s mostly happenstance, depending on the type of image I’m commissioned to illustrate. Though I always try to convey the mood of whatever I’m illustration to the best of my abilities. It just so happens that I’ve been commissioned to illustrate a lot of ‘dark’ stuff. If I’m asked to illustrate a dark – themed image then I’ll make it as dark as I can. I try to ensure that the creatures and monsters I illustrate are as horrible/evil/brutal/disgusting as I can possibly make them. A monster by its very nature should be able to evoke an element of danger and a negative emotion from its viewer, that’s why it’s a monster. One of my favourite things to illustrate is a scene that involves characters fighting a monster. I like to make sure that the monster/s are so threatening to make the viewer think “Those characters are so dead!”. I apply the same principles to whatever I illustrate to evoke the appropriate response from the viewer. So if I illustrated a heroic knight then the knight would have to look as heroic as possible. At the same time conveying those qualities that makes a hero; capable, dependable, honourable, hard as nails!
Rather than a ‘dark’ side, I guess it’s more accurate to say that my work has a more cinematic side to it.
ZI: Do you ever get to create art for yourself? (as in NOT a commissioned piece?) and I gotta know- what is that stuff like?
WR: Due to my busy work schedule, I very rarely get time to do a painting for myself. Maybe once every two years I might find the time to create an image that has been floating around in my head for a while. It’s usually fantasy or historical based and largely depends on what aspects I’m interested in at the time. The last painting I did for myself was a small image of an Inuit Girl. The inspiration came from the work I’d been doing depicting Inuit Mythology. There’s a whole bunch of images in my head that have been waiting to be depicted for years!
ZI Anything you’d like us to know about?
WR: Check out my art on the new Pathfinder RPG from Paizo publishing and the new 4th Edition D&D Eberron books from WotC. Wizards of the Coast have also previewed my cover images for 4th Edition D&D Dark Sun. My artwork is also available on a limited edition T-shirt “The Battle of Yankee Stadiums” at deskiraz.com. Sorry it’s not very zombie-related.
ZI Finally, while we are painfully aware you do not do prints online due to workload- how can someone get some artwork, and how can someone commission you for a piece?
WR: Not being able to allocate time to administer the sale of prints from my website is a regrettable consequence of my busy work schedule. It’s something I think about a lot but have yet to find a solution to the problem yet. However, you can contact me for commercial (Published) commissions via my website; www.waynereynolds.com
Thanks again for taking the time Wayne… We appreciate it! That’s it for this one… but check back in for more interviews here on the site! Oh, and one more thing… Don’t be a douche and try to use any of this artwork for any commercial purpose (this included promotional use) If you do the respective copyright holders will take action. Yeah… that’s the ‘legal stuff’.
I’m the Zombieking, and this topic is now DEAD to me.
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