Well, I'm Karl Kopinski from Nottingham UK
and
Really? My career's been a whole bunch of stuff at the moment. It's concept design game design
working as a concept artist oil painter illustrator and
Draftsman I guess really nothing has oddly enough a little bit of a hope for fantasy art. They have one of the biggest
Miniatures companies in the world is based there
so Games Workshop and that was where I worked as an in-house artist for seven years when I first really
You know start to develop this was maybe
27 28 I started there and
You know that so there is a hook there is a little core of fantasy
Artists and sculptors and writers based in that area. So in a sense, I was quite lucky with that location
It was then it was the thing. I was good at so I was doing it
From an early age and showing signs that were you know
You know
Ambidextrous for a while until I was about four or five. I was drawing with both hands. So my parents said I was always
doing it, you know and there was something there there's some spark but
I'm not
100%
Convinced it's a god-given talent that gets you to where I am now
It's there's a spark there and maybe the talent is the love of it. It's that's that's for me
That's what it's really about
Is that that love to do it?
you know and that was there from the beginning this I was happy to be on my own with a pencil and paper and
Awesome clay or you know and my brother does something very similar. He's the digital artist. So we'd actually do that play together
we'd either fight or
draw and make clay sculptures together
so it you know
It was a good environment for it. And my dad was good at drawing and my mom's very creative and my sister's a musician
So it was a very creative sort of
environment my dad's a
saxophonist
My mum's a hand-knit. So there was always things happening around you that
kind of, you know, we had we were quite poor family, but you know
people were making their own entertainment and amusing themselves with you know,
cheap things really
So yeah, that's that's that's where I started
I think I had a realization maybe three months ago that I'm still drawing what I was drawing when I was six
Now I get paid for it. So I'm drawing spacemen spider-man, you know
Barbarians and I go back and look at the stuff that I was drawing. Maybe when I was seven six or seven
There's not much of it left because it was done on scraps of paper and I never kept
Sketchbooks, but it was like space 1999
Tarzan Robin Hood
Spider-man so there was some kind of you know little themes that run in there
I'm still doing them now 40 years later. I should grow up really
And I was a curious kid as well really, you know, our parents said it was
Just make him stop asking questions
Knows that all kids do it as well. They're interested
and I think I was I'm still got that interest and you know, I like to look and
Observe and really watch people or understand how things work
I think that's something that most kids. Do you know ease yourself as a parent?
You probably know that that they're always asking you questions
but to hold on to that sort of inquisitiveness is it's quite a
tough thing to do, you know as you get older you get cynical you start to take things for granted, but I try to
Remain, you know interested and inquisitive really. Well. I had quite a bad experience of
college so when I you know
I went to uni in in a place in the northeast of the UK was not a particularly good course
and I was studying fine art and
they were I wanted to I thought I was going to get there and they just loved the fact I liked painting and that was
what I was interested in but in actual fact they were interested in the
Sort of angst-ridden story behind why I painted and I didn't have one
I had nice childhood great parents good environment not wealthy, but
super happy and and
Stable, you know, there's no
Alcoholic mother or you know, there's no there's no angst there. Really?
It was just a love of painting
So when I went to art college
And I I started to do these paintings and oils there's actually a lack of interest from the tutors
I felt and there wasn't anybody who kind of took me under their wing and it wasn't a course that was built on on realist
Painting or any of the things I was interested in no inner part is my fault for choosing the wrong place
But I became increasingly frustrated and actually went quite off the rails
For quite a long time, you know almost stopped drawing and painting completely
but those first two years at art college were where I first
Investigated, you know painting and oils and love of artists like Jenny Savile and Lucy and Freud and and also looking back
at some of the the kind of Victorian masters had a real affinity with people like Sargent and
Working Saroyan and people like that
so there's a there was a history there people I was
Interested in and but as I say I kind of went off the rails and almost stopped completely
it's quite it's it's not it's not upsetting to talk about it's quite a sad period really because I
the things that the situation's I found myself in were
you know they were
Worrying for my parents and and you know, there was there was no creative drive there
so I found for quite a period of I
just off the back of this course that I didn't know where I was going and what I was doing and and I wasn't
I'd lost that look. I hadn't lost the love of it. But I'd lost the love of of of just doing it intuitively and
I kind of just didn't I lost all direction
So what happened in actual fact was there's a few people around me and my parents and a few friends who just kept saying
You know, you really should keep this this drawing thing going, you know, you don't let it go
It's it's something that's you, you know
And it was those just those few words of a few pea an Irish guy
I met on foundation who introduced me to comic books called Kier and black who he's an artist now and in in Ireland and
He he introduced me to you know, people like Dave McKean and Bill Yankovic and all those kind of guys
so there was always somebody there just feeding that interest a little bit and then in actual fact
What happened was I got to a point where I thought I need to do something here and I started sending
sample artwork off and bearing in mind this is
25 years ago. Maybe you had to go to that post office
Make a photocopy of your art put it in an envelope write a letter
you know, it was a really arduous and long process that you had to do, but I started doing this to
2000ad actually did Judge Dredd at the time it was quite a big, you know British comic and that was what I did
For maybe two years off the back of it and didn't really get anywhere
So, yeah
I mean that's that that was kind of part of the journey
like ground to a halt really I did sample script sample script for 2018
Nothing happened. Then Games Workshop launched a small comic a friend worked there
They said let me take this in they gave me some work for two years. I
made no money, but I was getting out there and like working with good writers and then
GW Games Workshop asked me to go in house and that was the big
kind of kick up the ass that I needed and I suddenly got thrown in with a bunch of really
High-level artists as people. There are still friends with who were you know, super super good in you had to kind of up you game
rapidly
So Paul, Denton
Adrian Smith people like that who who were really inspiring and the good environment as well, you know quite
energetic and inspiring
Sort of environment to work in so we did that work there for seven years slowly turned over to working in oils
As I was trying to work in acrylics there because I thought I had to I've always made this kind of mistake
Of thinking I have to do something and then realised a year down the line. I don't have to do that
so I switched to oils and
It was kind of like a bit of a turning point
There as well because it was the medium that I felt an affinity with and I had obviously used it uni
But kind of lost this
Listeners attachment to it. So I came back to that at GW and and started working in oils solely
And then I went freelance
and started getting work with people like magic and
Ubisoft and a small French manufacturer called a
Rock and you did miniature games and gave me so much freedom. It was quite
you know quite a
alarming at first they just wanted me to do Carl Kaminsky and
GW didn't do that. You did GW. So that was a big turning point that suddenly someone's like that
Yeah, but we love what you do
Can you do that for us with our stuff and suddenly like wow, yeah. Okay Oh
As as different as it may appear
I'm not essentially a confident person and I'm like most of the guys here
I'm a bit awkward and slightly socially inept and could not a cock
Naturally confident person that can hold you back with your artwork. So I mean at GW
You would you definitely in a box you were an illustrator and you had a hierarchy
only the upper level artists were allowed to concept so we were really like
Although we were designing on the fly really in your illustrations. You weren't allowed to
Say you were a concept designer. It wasn't you know your role
and then to say
You know
So I leave and I I mean I had work set up when I left straightaway for this French company and their immediate response was
Just do you think you know and it was?
how hellishly confused in her first, you know and real kind of I
Couldn't say I hit a brick wall with it, but I found it hard to get through this
Constantly asking the art direct so is this okay, you know
Can I do this do and every time we go now just do you think just go with it?
Just run with it to kind of free yourself up from that. There's the sort of shackles that you
You built for yourself really and they built for you maybe
So it takes time I don't think you can rush it you just gotta sort of let it happen organically and naturally
and be
because people are putting more and more trust and faith in me and what I did then
You know as I said, my confidence isn't
Super high at the best of times but though just those little things helped me to you know, I you know
I can do this and it was probably also the point where I started to you know
I'm quite well known as a sketch artist now, but it was probably the point where I started to
Do more of this sketching and people were seeing it. It was always part of a process
It wasn't the end product but there was art Derek Scott really love this sketch
can we have a few more of those for concept designs, you know wasn't working digitally with it was always just a pencil drawing so
There's just that the beginnings of those
sort of kind of stylistic
Developments happening at that point, but essentially a lot of it was
You know
Influenced and informed by what dinner games work? I've done I've done
paintings of the Battle of Waterloo that were like 45 by 30 inch
Epic kind of oil paintings and that is a long and arduous process of you know
composition of sketch nail some of the figure positions
Definitive figure sketches and and and really kind of tying down what each individual figures doing
Making studies and then putting it together as an oil painting
but more and more with the fantasy stuff as I've become more confident and
maybe informed by the fact that I'm sketching more mark and I can kind of
Get this stuff out and down pretty quick and then work
over that and I use a technique that I picked up from looking at James gurney a lot of the time which is to
to draw on the paper
Whether it's in pencil or pencil crayon, I fix it go over with the liquid SMAP medium
which seals it and then you retain your pencil drawing which is the the kind of bones of what I do and
stylistically really informs the rest of the painting and then you can go over with the oil paints and
Kind of bang some paint on over the top of it. So I'm still trying to more and more now
I'm trying to keep that that essence of the line work that
you know, it's probably when I look back it's the stuff that
My you know contemporaries and the artists I work with they always like that about my work
And so I realize that's one of my strengths and you know as you get older you start to realize you've got a plate you
strengths somewhat, you know you can't be
Everything you can't be the artist you really want to be you can just be you. You know, I like this
Also, I said in my talk yesterday. I like this idea that
You know, you die not ever reaching the point you want to reach, you know?
It's always that just out of reach on attainability that drives you forward. You know, every painting is the next one
It's going to be the best the last one didn't quite turn out how you wanted it and I like that
That idea of the journey is that it's the joy of it, you know
there's something that always stuck with me was something that Greg Manchester said was
You know if you think you might be done
Put the paint into one side and leave it for a couple of days because you probably are done
and it really is it's a great way to approach it because that moment that you sit there thinking I
Think this might be finished
It's a fine balance. It's a tipping point. You can very easily kind of mess things up and give yourself another
Three or four days work fixing it
or you can leave it and retain some of that freshness and
For me the thing that appeals to me as well as I get older and and and I start to
work with people like jeonggi
And and people like Greg Manchester that you meet and is is that to be able to use a shorthand?
You know, I like the idea that you don't have to
define every element of your drawing or paint and you just put enough information for it to read and
in fact
What you do then is you you create a relationship with the view and you know that they're filling in the blanks that
they're building a story around the character that they're doing some of the work and rather than
photographic representation of every element of your beautifully rendered paintings, of course
I'm not, you know, people like Jerome who did that, you know
beautifully and fantastically well, but for me, that's just a
You know, no I don't feel that such an affinity with that
I like to see some gesture and things left kind of undefined and
Let the viewer do a bit of the work. This is quicker. I
Do look at other artists and I think I wish I could do that, you know could wish I could do this perfectly
you know, you know kind of
defined line with one movement, but really a lot of the time I'm looking for stuff and you know
Even when I start a sketch, I'll do some very fast
Gestural lines that might to the viewer not look like anything, you know
but they what they do is they they just kind to
Start to give it a bit of life and energy and even if you're just doing a portrait or a head or something
You can still impart a movement and an energy to it by
Leaving a bit of the gestural line work in there and I like that and you know
Like the fact that you go to a museum and you can look at the Sargent painting that we've done what?
130 years ago
But in actual fact what you've got those
Captured perfectly as a movement and I love that fact that you you're that close to something that happened
It's like seeing the footprints of a caveman, you know
It's it's that movement captured in time and I really like that idea
So I try to you know, keep a bit of that in the paint and keep a bit of life and freshness
So that's the the thing and from a technical point this idea of making gestural lines and quick
you know movement lines, this is
You know helps me do that
I'm looking now
because I have this I
Never don't know what how it happened. I'm lucky with my following that I have on social media that that's kind of helped to define
Who I am and what I am because I'm able to put that stuff out there and it's seen by a huge audience
Well know before I had that there was definitely a case that you had to clean things up and keep it, you know
Nice for the animators, but more and more now
I mean
I I work digitally for a long time when I was working with Magic the Gathering
And doing a lot of concept work for computer games. I was always working digitally now. I've stopped completely it just
didn't float my boat enough, you know, I kept coming back to the pencil and the oils and the watercolor and
Realizing that I can get the same, you know
idea down and
Enjoy the process a lot more than when I was working digitally. So now
if I if
You know, our director comes to me. I'll say you do know I I only work
Really in pencil and paint and they're usually fine with it occasionally
I'll colorize stuff with you know digital, but it's very
it's like Neanderthal level, you know, I use procreate I take photo with the iPad of the sketch and then I just
Splash some colors on there. So it's you know, it's it's pretty basic stuff
But it works for me and and as I say that that seems to be what they're looking for from me now
So I'm really looking, you know all the way through my career in life. I keep thinking. I'm just so looking, you know, really I
Don't get me wrong a word
You know bloody odd. I'm
Working like 12 hours a day most days, but it's just through love of it. It's not through
You know, I need to be better. I need to get the money coming in. It's because I love it. So
In that sense, you know, I'm really lucky that they're happy to come from for what I do
You know what I can offer and more and more
I'm trying to you know
Maybe little clients where I did that less with maybe with Magic the Gathering when I was working digitally
I was still me but it wasn't
Really me. It was my
Magic version of you know now I I stopped doing digital for them and I just work in
in oils for them and it's harder because
you've got
Considerations like getting the image over to them
You know before I could just email it now, I have to scan it or get it photographed if it's larger
so there is some technical issues there but it also makes better business sense because you know
I get paid a rate to do the image
But then you get collectors who want to buy the image afterwards. So if you've only got a digital file
I'm still suspicious as well if digital because it's numbers. There's nothing there
It's a it's all there you can see it on the screen this beautiful thing people do but it's not
There's nothing physical there and I find that
I know it's a kind of a stupid thing that it jars a little bit with me that there's nothing
the fact that there's that
Distance between the two it just I don't know that's part of what I struggled with. I couldn't feel I
Couldn't smell the pain, you know, I couldn't I couldn't feel the marks on the paper and that's what I grew up doing
I'm like, he sounds child of the seventies. This technology wasn't there. My first computer was a ZX spectrum or
Zx81, you know
You played a space space invaded game where the ship was a zero and ax and a dash and it was like well
This is technology. So, you know, I just didn't grow up with that affinity
I'm interested to see where it goes as well because it's the level live of kids that you see at this
events, like this is super high and they've grown up with this so it becomes like
Intuitive for them. It just never was intuitive for me. So I came back to the thing that was you know
So while I once tell people is, you know, you should never feel beholden to one medium
You know, it's not it's not been the case for me. It's not been for the case for so many artists
I admire and probably you know, the guys who are watching this admire
It's about the ability to draw in the love of it. And that's what it it really boils down to
All of those media are perfectly
you know justified to use them and
Experiment with them and also you've got to remember the bones of what you do is not the medium
It's the bones of what you do is that is the drawing how you choose to make that is
your decision and and and can inform your stylistic development over the years, but the
real foundation of what we do is draw in it's not
this medium that filter this app, you know, it's it's
It's it's that basic thing that gave men were doing on walls
It's that magic of taking this and this and this and making something with it
And that's that's what you've got to hold on to and build on as well
Well for me, I mean if you look at my the point when I got my first paid work
that that same day I was looking at
Jobs in a pet food factory. I was applying for jobs in a pet food factory
I gave up on the 2000ad thing as is no point and that same day
This guy came to me and so they're interested. They want you to do something. So what you've got
I mean what you've got to remember is patience as well. I came to it late
I started really getting paid work at the age of 25 26 made hardly anything
Maybe my first good income was at the age of 28 or 29
But you've got to be patient you've got to realize there's only hard work can really get you to be
you know a great artist you can't there's a lot of shortcuts and tricks and tips to learn but
It's nothing without applying it for years and years and I met a guy yesterday was 21 and a Russian guy with an amazing
Portfolio of
A whole story line he was developing and I said you 21 man just do it
You know don't stress
Getting paid work from other clients
Keep this going make it what you want it to be don't always be pushing to get this stuff out there and the instant results
Because it's not about that you it's a long game. You've got to play the long game. So be really good
everyone can do stuff this
Wow, whiz-bang, you know
fantastic filters and but
You can leave yourself. You can fall short of what you could be as an artist by doing that
I always go in the easy route. I think you know, you've got to just be prepared to put put the hours in and
Like I said earlier that love of it it's what you know
It doesn't feel to me like a job this it feels like I have no pension. I have no retirement plan
I have nothing whether I don't want to retire don't want to do that
I want to just keep going until I drop
If I put a pension in that
I don't want to end up walking around a hardware store on this Saturday afternoon looking at drills, you know
I want to be drawing still so you know, that's that's that's how it is for me. It's a passion
It's love for it. And you know, I
Can't imagine not doing it's me. It's what I am. You know, I'm a father
I'm a husband and I love that part of my life
But they wouldn't know what to do with me. If I wasn't an artist I drive them insane, you know
Just a few months ago. I was asked to join super Annie which is a huge honor for me
I've worked with jeonggi quite a lot of done to a lot of conventions and I know he's European
Get one of his European
distributors who said publisher as well
so we've built a relationship that way and and
Ctn's the first time I've come and met the American arm of Super Annie and have been welcomed into the you know
the the Love Shack that is
super Annie, so that's a huge honor for me to be put in in with such, you know, obviously gifted and
Genius sort of level artists is a huge honor. So I'm looking forward to seeing what that brings
I've got a new book out that I've got a couple of new volumes out that I'm doing with a
French publisher, so I just yeah, I keep drawing that
Keep drawing and painting. I'm riding my bike
