While many designers are working completely digitally these days, you still work primarily by hand. Why is that?

I like the craft of getting out the brush and ink and doing the work on illustration board. I’ve dedicated myself to promoting and keeping alive techniques of the past. I like to sketch everything out in pencil and be able to erase a lot of things and redo them to make sure it looks good before I get my brushes and pen out.

If a client needs something to be digital, I do everything in pencil first to make sure all of the pieces are where they need to be, then I scan the work and drop it into Adobe Illustrator. From there, it’s just a matter of using the pen tool, tweaking lines, and making sure all the curves are nice. I learned all that from working at House. I didn’t really have any digital experience before that.

Before you joined House Industries in 1999, you were working in the comic book industry.

Yeah, at DC Comics and a bit at Marvel. I’m a complete nerd. Ever since I was little I’ve been a Superman fanatic. I had Superman everything. I’ve always drawn and didn’t think of any other career options. "I have to draw comics when I grow up," I thought as a kid. That was the only choice.

I set my mind on that and it was really fun. I would do sample pages and take them to local comic conventions. I would show them to artists and editors and say, “Please tear this apart for me, because I need to know what I need to improve on.” I spent a while going to shows, getting critiqued, then coming home and trying to fix all the mistakes I’d been making.

Then I took a drive to New York City; I’d called ahead and got a couple interview with editors to show them my work. While I was driving back home, I got a call for a trial job, to give a few pages a shot and if they liked them, they’d let me try a few more. I ended up working in comic books for a few years, but I was working 18 to 20 hours each day to make deadlines and finally realized I didn’t have time to eat. It was then that I realized I needed to find something that would give me a more standard Monday-through-Friday schedule.

Which is when you got the job at House Industries, without any formal training, just your experience at DC Comics and Marvel?

Like a lot of young artists, I would copy work out of books and magazine. If you’re honest with yourself, you can tell you’re not at the level you need to be at. Going to the comic shows and finding out what I was doing wrong was my training--and what better source of critique than the people who’ve already made it?

I did a couple freelance projects for House, and then they asked me if I wanted to come on full time. I jumped at the chance, and they hired me on January 1, 1999--though I didn’t have to work on New Year’s Day.

Who do you consider the greats in illustration, the ones to learn from?

My favorite illustrators of the past are Robert Fawcett, Al Hirschfeld, N.C. Wyeth, Rene Gruau, Mary Blair, and Albert Dorne. Robert Fawcett is my all-time favorite. In decades past, there was a lot more emphasis on draftsmanship and drawing than there is today. Computer programs take a lot of skill, but there’s generally a lot less training in college these days in good, solid drawing. Back when Fawcett and his ilk were doing illustrations, you had to get the pencil and paper out and make it work. These guys had so much skill. I love his style; he brought such life to his work. And he could do any medium: paint, pencil, ink. With all the tools we have at our disposal today, the field of illustration should be so much more advanced than it is.

Who are your favorite illustrators of today?

My favorite illustrators currently working are James Jean, Ashley Wood, Norm Breyfogle, Enrico Marini, Chris Ware, and Adam Rex.

What are your favorite design websites?

I go to drawn.ca the most. It’s a big, involved blog with post after post of illustrators, illustrations, and techniques—a playground for illustrators. I also really like swiss-miss.com.

What's next?

I’ve just recently gone to a part-time schedule at House so I can pursue more freelancing. Right out of the gates, the project with Dwell came across my desk. This architectural piece was a lot of fun. I really like doing people and portraits, but I’m open to anything as long as it seems like it’d be fun and there would be an opportunity to learn a couple of things along the way.