Nathan Fowkes
During the course of his stellar career, concept artist and teacher Nathan Fowkes has already witnessed huge changes in terms of how artists work. And while the industry is on the threshold of even bigger innovations, he explains to us how the humble sketchbook is still immensely valuable to students and professionals alike.
Tell us a little about your artistic background. How did you get started, and what path has your career taken?
My career has been such an interesting ride because I started back in the early 90s before the big animation and video game boom, and before concept art was really a thing. So no one was teaching those things, I just knew I wanted to do what I thought of as imaginative art.
Early on, going into art school at the Art Center College of Design based in Pasadena, I thought I would do things like book cover art and illustration, but then when I graduated in 1995, opportunities were starting to appear in entertainment art, and that was absolutely the place for me. Getting paid to do splashy, imaginative art? It’s exactly what I’d hoped to do.
I started out doing theme park show design at a company that contracted out
