PRO Member Interview: Rick Forgus

Welcome back to the PRO spotlight series, where we showcase the PRO members of our community. Today’s interview is with Rick Forgus from Arizona, USA. Rick’s playful vector illustrations are a real joy to look at, and his impressive portfolio includes everything from city branding to commissioned posters. 

I grew up in a small West Texas town knowing I would spend my life as an artist. Comic books, movies, and Ray Bradbury’s writing served as early inspiration. I graduated with a BFA from Arizona State University and worked as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator.

I draw every illustration with pencil and paper on his drawing board. I blend my knowledge of old-school techniques with the digital technology standard in the industry today.

As the creative director for the City of Scottsdale, I produced work visible throughout the city. I designed the Scottsdale Airport logo, branding material for the McDowell Mountain Preserve, and manhole covers displaying the city symbol — which I also created. I also earned recognition with multiple awards from city, state and national organizations for my creative solutions.

I’ve illustrated comic books, children’s books, book covers, movie and event posters, magazine and editorial articles, toy and food packaging, character designs and even an award-winning hotel key card! Illustration is my passion. For me, it’s not the want to draw, it’s the have to draw.

I always loved going to the movies growing up and I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the incredible art of the movie poster: that huge one sheet size and, at that time, an array of illustrators doing incredible work. That led me to research more on the art of the poster and introduced me to the beautiful works of Alphonse Mucha, Abram Games, Otis Shepard, Bob Peak and a continuing list of inspirations.

Thank you. Art Deco was a very early influence on my illustration. The clean lines and clear delineation still guide my current work. Otis and Dorothy Shepard’s work on the Wrigley Gum projects still looks so wonderful, and I reference their work continually. Other heroes are Abram Games, Joseph Binder, Mario Puppo and all of those unheralded creators of the WPA era. Comics, sci-fi, books and artists such as Charley Harper, Otis Shepard, Abram Games, Joseph Binder continue to inspire my designs and illustrations, and a favorite pastime of mine is scouring the internet for new illustration inspiration.

I still love the feel of pencil on paper. I always begin my work in a sketchbook doing thumbnails and looking through my library of resources. The initial design is always the greatest challenge and you get that feeling when you hit on something that works that will transfer the thumbnail idea into a final drawing.

I typically draw each main element of the design on 8 1/2” x 11” paper separately. This allows me the freedom to scan the pencils and composite them in Illustrator. This also gives the possibility of a happy accident when you see the elements come together and a different solution or additional design ideas might come through.

Then begins the process of rendering the final art in Illustrator on several layers for each element. I don’t rely too much on Illustrator’s many facets of tools and filters as such. I prefer to take that old time approach of drawing straight forward with the pen tool and then refining as I go, but still keeping it simple. I tend to work faster that way and it’s more comfortable for me having done it for so long now.

Of course, there’s always some tinkering as the work goes along. A complete change of direction might happen, but most often, the final piece looks like my original chosen thumbnail design… but better.

One of my favorites and most well received pieces was the art I did for the Burlesque Hall of Fame’s annual convention in Las Vegas. It won a few awards and appeared on apparel, hotel key cards, posters and convention book covers. A great piece.

Another was for the LA CookieCon. Burt Ward was appearing as a special guest and I was hired to work up a commemorative poster for his animal charity. Of course, I drew him as his classic Robin character from the 60’s Batman TV show and I got to illustrate the Batmobile as well. The interesting part was working with the legal representatives at Warner Bros. They are very particular on how their characters are rendered — down to the Batmobile. They had specific criteria I had to meet — while also meeting the deadline for the printing. It worked out great and everyone was just wonderful to work with. I’m very proud of this piece.

Now, a real treat was working with Hasbro Toys on their convention banner/poster. I initially got this project through a submittal I sent to IDW Publishing who at that time was printing several Hasbro properties. They provided me with a specific list of toy lines they wanted represented. As I worked and submitted pencil art that was approved, the list of toy lines began to change. This meant adding or replacing some toys with others and then tossing the new toys and replacing them with the original toys… and on it went. A very challenging piece to finish, but I do have quite a library of toy illustrations now.

My wife and I were walking through the Tempe Art Museum one day and stumbled across the museum curator’s office. Offhandedly, I mentioned they needed some comic book art in there. It just so happened she was planning a comic book art display. I illustrated four large paintings of comic book characters that were displayed. Then, a few years later she contacted me to create a series of large southwestern animal illustrations that were output as huge posters and displayed in the post office.

I’ve been with PosterSpy for many years, but I went PRO a few months ago and it could not have been a better experience. Working with Jack on my submittals, I’ve seen the site continually grow and improve so quickly. The PosterSpy team are really dedicated to creating the ultimate experience for illustrators to showcase their work. I can’t recommend becoming a PRO on PosterSpy enough. I’ve had great feedback on my work and have reached a wider audience.

Follow Rick Forgus

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Website: https://www.rickforgusillustration.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rickforgus/

Cruise Creative: https://www.cruisecreative.com/artist/CON02752