Life, death, magic and Rupert the perverted chinchilla: Gary Evans steps into the LA-based artist’s alternate reality
JAW Cooper can tell you the exact moment she got into art. Her parents worked in ecology and evolutionary biology, specialising in freshwater invertebrates. Her parents’ research took them around the world, so Cooper grew up “somewhat nomadically.”
She and her younger sister were free to explore their surroundings. In Ireland, she searched for oysters in the caves of Oysterhaven. In California, she fished mountain rivers with bare hands till her fingers went numb. In Kenya, she “bestowed unwanted attention” on all kinds of animals (“sorry, small wild tortoise who lived in our front yard in Nairobi, that I washed your shell every day”).
Her mother also practised scientific illustration. Cooper, aged six years old, spent a summer at a research laboratory in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Here she watched her mother draw birds in great detail, and was “fixated.”
“It seemed like such a mesmerising trick to make an image appear using only a blank piece of paper and lines, but I determined I could perform this magic too, if I took a methodical approach to learning.
“I drew grids on paper and then drew a cat in each box, trying to improve on the previous one each time and figure out what worked and what didn’t. I had many hobbies as a young child, but this obsession with drawing and improvement was the only one that caught hold and never let go of me.”
TOUGH TIME AT COLLEGE
Cooper attended Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. She doesn’t remember her time there with any great fondness. But the college was expensive so Cooper felt that she had to make the most of it, and worked hard… too hard. She didn’t eat properly and went without sleep. It’s an environment she wouldn’t recommend to others.
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Esta historia es de la edición August 2019 de ImagineFX.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
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PAINT EPIC BATTLES IN TRADITIONAL INK
Warhammer illustrator THOMAS ELLIOTT shows you how to create an epic science fiction fight scene with this step-by-step guide
CONJURE MAGIC ILLUSTRATIONS
Daria Anako demonstrates her process for creating a whimsical piece of art with some spellbinding touches
First Impressions
We discover the early influences that inspired the artist
ZBrush for iPad
GAME CHANGER The desktop version of popular 3D sculpting software ZBrush has been redesigned for iPad - and it's brilliant
BenQ GW2786TC
GET AN EYEFUL Don't scrimp out on your health with a monitor that's kind on the eyes and good for creative tasks
Huion Kamvas Pro 19
TABLET WARS An attractive pen display does an excellent job of balancing price and performance as it sets out to challenge its rivals in the mobile marketplace
DRAGON OFORCEC
Legendary D&D artist Larry Elmore explains the keys to crafting timeless fantasy art.
DUNGEON MASTERS
ImagineFX marks the milestone 50th anniversary of the launch of Dungeons & Dragons with a look at its rich tradition of illustration
Erik Ly
Gamer's haven Why the artist enjoys a maximalist aesthetic more than the minimalist approach.
2D meets 3D: How the workflows are merging
Interdimensional As VFX and animation evolve and tools become more accessible, Tanya Combrinck asks whether the separation between the mediums is reducing