Meet Scott C.!



Based in New York, Scott C's work spans a wide spectrum of media including paintings, children's book illustrations, and video games. He usually works in watercolor, applying the paint in a delicate yet splotched manner, such that there is a controlled and intuitive roughness to his pieces. In many ways, this particular roughness gives off the impression of intentional imperfection, a visual technique that lends itself towards Scott's interest in recreating childhood nostalgia.

A graduate of the Art Academy in San Francisco, Scott has since used his illustration degree to pursue a wide variety of projects. His most notable artistic achievements include his art direction in acclaimed video games, Psychonauts and Brutal Legend, as well as his Great Showdowns series and Double Fine Action Comics. 

Your work often draws on a wide spectrum of pop culture. Are you inspired by topics that are nostalgic to you? Can you share any more about this?

It is true! Pop culture is a big influence on my paintings. I am inspired by nostalgia and making fun of the things that have influenced my life since childhood. Well, maybe it's not making fun really. Or, maybe it is. We're laughing together, pop culture and I. I like to feel good and make people happy. Oftentimes people are pretty happy when they recognize things and discover things. I like to create paintings that give people those moments. 

I've worked in video games for about 10 years or so, creating concept art and storyboards for Double Fine Productions. The biggest projects were probably Psychonauts and Brutal Legend.  Working on those titles taught me about backstory and meaning behind the way things look and how environments and characters themselves can tell a story. While working at Double Fine, I made comics and watercolor paintings for galleries and made visits to comic conventions. Video games, comics, and galleries were all very different venues for creating stories and they all fueled my creativity differently. Each made an impact upon the other. Children's books are a rather new medium for me, but it's one that I have been excited about exploring since I was young.  Kids create the craziest stories, so it is fun to try to think in that realm. The one media I would love to explore is film and also live performance...and puppets.  I would like to try all three of those things actually.

It took me awhile to find comfort in my painting medium. I tried acrylic and gouache, but they all felt too dense for me. Watercolors have an awesome airiness to them that makes me feel super good. I like getting the texture and looseness as well. My style is pretty janky with a shaky line because I like imperfection. There is more character in a weird effed-up line than in a perfect line, I feel. I'd like to get into more textures actually, like collage. I've always wanted to go back and try oils again though, which was my absolute favorite long ago.
 

I have always been fascinated by children's art and stories. I wonder where the heck they get these crazy ideas from. They create insane scenarios that adults struggle to come up with. I used to work with kids an awful lot and I enjoyed listening to their stories as they painted. I would like to think that some of that energy has crept into the narratives that I create in my paintings.

The most enjoyable reaction I could get from someone observing my paintings is laughter, a little pointing, and even smiling. I could go with smiling just fine. I realized a while ago that that was what was most important to me when people experience my artwork. But I don't like to shovel it out to everyone. I like to lay out a few little things and make them subtle so that they can piece it together themselves. Other times, they are obviously just overly preposterous.  That's how it goes.

The idea for Zombie In Love came from my editor at Simon & Schuster, Namrata Tripathi. Kelly wrote a super funny story with really descriptive notes and ideas on jokes. Most of the illustration process was coming up with visual gags with Namrata and Sonia Chaghatzbanian, the art director, to enhance the story. They were all amazingly clever people, so the process was very enjoyable. It's incredibly satisfying to make each other laugh when you all respect each other's tastes. So that's how it went, and I enjoyed the process very much.
 

Mortimer had to be a lovable dude. But he also had to be a zombie. Zombies are terrifying and gross usually, so we had to make him pleasant enough for kids to want him to succeed in finding someone special. I wanted to make him look sort of optimistic and eager, so that you don't get too sad when he is failing all the time. And we had rules for the goriness as well. We could have body parts fall off, but it had to almost look like a doll. And no messed up skin. I tried having worms coming out of his skin, but it was decided that that was going too far. So we kept him blueish. People turn blue when they die, I think I read somewhere.

Well, I have his plaid shirt for sure.

Yeah, man. Keep trying over and over again and go to any dance titled "Cupid's Ball" and if you hear someone fall down and make a crashing sound behind you, turn around!  It may be that super special someone, but if it's not, that's ok, too.

I do have an art book coming out! it is called Amazing Everything. Insight Editions is putting it out and Jack Black did a special little foreword for it. It compiles many of my paintings in the past few years from various shows including some things from Home Slice and Great Great Grand Show at Gallery Nucleus. Just a bunch of things. It will be hard bound and largeish and it'll sit nicely on coffee tables or people's laps.

I've got a variety of little group shows going on. Some book things are in the works. The Great Showdowns are still happening.  Summer is still happening. Fall is almost here. All kinds of things!

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