No stranger to comic art fans as Uncannyknack on the Internet, John Gallagher is a former Director of Concept Art for BioWare from 1995-2004 during their golden age and has lived and worked in Vancouver in the film industry since 2008. Since then he has worked as a production illustrator and concept designer on a wide range of genre series and features from Once Upon A Time, Falling Skies, and Man in the High Castle to Night at the Museum 3, Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters, and Power Rangers.
John is currently winding down a couple years of personal projects, developing his first live-action and first animated streaming series, as well as recently wrapping from The BOYS season 3, The Expanse season 6, and Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. He also ran his own cover variant imprint over lockdown which he describes as, "intense firewagon fun."
He'll soon be debuting his own podcast, Uncannyknack: Living the Question where he will talk with creators of all tradecraft about the art life less chosen. During downtime, he enjoys spending time with friends and family, devouring high culture and lowbrow kitsch (with equal enthusiasm), a good debate, beautiful moments, vodka, living well, and contemplating the nature of all things in this shared substrate reality.
I first met John back in 2015, at a comic convention in Portland, Oregon. I was attending with my wife, and he had a booth in Artist Alley. I was initially blown away by his artwork, but after I struck up a conversation with him, and we got to chatting, I soon realized that there was a lot more to this guy than just some pretty pictures. I knew I had to interview him. Eight years later, John was one of the first illustrators I thought of when I decided to revamp the website and begin interviewing again, and luckily, he had a lot more to say. This man does not disappoint.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is John Gallagher.
DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/uncannyknack
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncannyknack
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncannyknack
Portfolio: https://www.uncannyknack.com
Art Store: https://www.johngallagherart.com
What initially sparked your interest in illustration, and how did you start your career in this field?
My origin story isn't likely all that different from any other creator. From the time I could manually operate any form of drawing device, I was doodling inappropriate things on convenient surfaces. The steady diet of high-calorie eye protein from monster movies, comic books, and Saturday morning cartoons ensured that my salty brain meat was core damaged from an early age. Along with a natural sense of curiosity and thrill of adventure, I had all the ingredients for something interesting, stupid, or dangerous to happen.
Star Wars on May 25, 1977, blew my head apart and pieced back together differently, never to be the same. Then in rapid succession, I discovered Frank Frazetta, Heavy Metal magazine, Robert E. Howard, H.P Lovecraft, and a cascade of other key influences so the die was cast. I wasn't sure what was going to happen with any of these explosions behind my eyes but something was out there just beyond the horizon...maybe...possibly. I was a dependable but distracted student, doing well enough to have plenty of post-secondary options but only one thing had gravity and resonance, and that was doing art.
When I graduated high school I went to the Alberta College of Art in Calgary and washed out after a year. It was all conceptual 'art' allegedly meaningful and important but mostly statement-driven nonsense, representational work be damned, rather than the heresy I dared to darken the college campus with: I want to work on cool things with cool people, make a bunch of money and have a blast doing it. Blasphemy! I tried to break into independent black-and-white comics around this time and did a few issues of a couple books but it's an unsustainable enterprise so I packed my bags and called it a day.
Flash forward several years later after continuing to draw, travelling, and putting wise mileage on my head and heart I graduated from broadcasting and went to work almost immediately writing and producing hard-sell car commercials during the day and doing freelance pop culture and lifestyle interviews for local cable suppliers. One of them was for BioWare when the upstart studio was still doing medical software and had begun work on their first game Shattered Steel. We hit it off well, I got them lots of TV time with a couple segments and they asked if I could do anything else. I said I could draw like a sonuvabitch. They said we've heard that before and I responded with sure maybe but not from me. I showed them my portfolio and they asked when I wanted to start. BioWare was nine years, twelve games, and 24 million copies sold, and my professional career began and went into overdrive.
I left BioWare in late 2004, took a couple years off to reassemble myself after aging in game development dog years, and was contacted in December 2007 by Steve Geaghan, the production designer of Fear Itself: Masters of Horror season two which was crewing up in Edmonton of all places. I had done storyboards for a couple Ginger Snaps movies so was listed on the union call sheet and that was when the second act of my art career began. I've been busy working as an illustrator in film since that first show and while it's not without its challenges, I've been loving the challenge with a raw beginner's passion and a village idiot's intelligence since. Never a dull moment!
Are there any specific styles or mediums that you prefer to work with? How would you describe your artistic style?
Can you walk us through your creative process? How do you approach a new illustration project from start to finish?
Then it's time to target the direction and treatment, going through the roster from colour to form language to camera position to key elements and all points in between leading to the inevitable how do we best tell this story. I do this by a further process of elimination, continuously narrowing the focus. I often build a file of tone and inspiration and that becomes the raw material I start throwing around in my usually completely empty head including approaches I would never try or use.
Once most possibilities have been eliminated the remaining prospects are the field of winners. Amongst them, usually intuitively, is the final best answer. Based upon the 20,000 + terrible drawings I've done I have a natural response I trust at this point to the obvious last option standing. Through this winnowing down I begin to formulate the final treatment. Once this mental fuck around and find-out has been performed, doing the piece is almost an afterthought. I used to thumbnail back in the day but found it largely futile for myself as a mental mapping effort. I tend to knead brain clay in my mind's eye and 'see' the forming piece.
Then, with little fanfare, do the piece in a few hours. I always entertain spontaneous happy accidents and renegade brain waves during this translation from noise to final cut and generally, it renders out like I expected with a few cool things I didn't know I needed in there and always a couple little mostly for me surprises.
How do you stay inspired and motivated in your work? Are there any specific sources or practices that help fuel your creativity?
Have you ever faced creative blocks, and if so, how do you overcome them?
Are there any specific projects or goals you're currently working on or hoping to pursue in the near future?
What advice would you give to aspiring illustrators who are just starting their journey in this field?
Is there anything else you'd like to share about your work or the illustration industry as a whole?