Designer Showcase: Shane Clester

The mark of a true artist or a designer is when that person always has a writing utensil in hand, whether it's a stylus, pencil, pen, paint brush, or crayon. The ideas of an artist are so plentiful that one can find themselves going through withdraw if there's too big of a time period without having put something on paper.

Shane Clester is a perfect example of this. He's been drawing everything since he was a child, and his large portfolio only scratches the surface of his body of work. Shane's twitter (https://twitter.com/ShaneClester/) is evidence that he spends a lot of time doing what he loves: drawing! Shane's site features different formats of his work: comic books, character designs, drawings, story boards, and chicken scratches (which are far from chicken scratch!). Below are some of our favorites from Shane's site. Below that, make sure to check out Shane's mini interview.

Shane Clester: A Few Portfolio Pieces

Get To Know Shane Clester

• What are the biggest challenges and benefits you face from working for yourself and working from home?I think I have the same challenges as anyone else: the isolation, the distractions, the billing. We have a four month old baby girl, so being able to see her grow and develop make all the challenges much less significant. I used to love the freedom to take my work to a bar and day drink as I worked (which I still enjoy), but being able to look over and see my daughter smile or hear her silly baby noises as I'm working, man, there's nothing better than that.
• What does your preferred workflow look like?
• What's your favorite illustration activity and why?I would make up characters all day every day if I could. I love that aspect of my job because its pure creativity. Just messing around, seeing what you can come up with. People's response to a character is immediate. I enjoy when people laugh (or slightly chuckle) at a character I created, instead of a joke that I set up or something "cool" I drew that impressed them. Making people happy with my characters is extremely gratifying.
• What advice do you have for new illustrators?I would suggest finding people who believe in your potential. Those relationships have proven to be the most rewarding for me. Find people who support who you can be and where you can go, not just like who you are and what you're doing. The latter is better to have than not have of course, but you do the job, they pay you for said job, then that's it. End of relationship. If you find people willing to invest in you and go on a journey with you, hang on to those people.