Interview: Sam Brewster

(March 2022)

We love the level of detail in Sam's work – check out all the figures bringing this recent East London Trades Guild Map to life – and how much texture there is in his images, like the nighttime railway illo further down this newsletter. Sam spoke to us about the tools he uses and why he imagines illustration as a trade rather than a profession.

I’ve been working as a freelance illustrator since 2009 and in that time I’ve illustrated nine books, hundreds of editorials for newspapers and magazines and sold thousands of affordable prints. I’ve always seen my work as more of a trade than a profession, and I’m sure that thinking in this way has shaped my work and myself.

I’ve started to do some personal work recently and that’s been hugely satisfying, painting both digitally and on canvas. It’s very freeing to spend real time finding exactly what I want to see, rather than visualising the client’s ideas. The hard work in doing this is not to think about what anyone else might want to see.

When I’m working on commissions I draw almost entirely in Procreate and then finish in Photoshop on Mac with a Wacom Intuos. When the artwork has too many layers for my iPad I have to bounce flattened/layered files between the two, which becomes a puzzle at times.

Years ago I used to draw with Indian ink and a brush on a light panel, separating each colour layer on a sheet of copy paper, but due to time (and therefore money) constraints I’ve moved on to this less messy workflow. Now when I draw on paper sometimes I two-finger-tap the sheet to erase a mistake, but nothing happens.
I mentioned painting before — I want to spend some more time developing that. It was always my intention to become a fine artist of some sort, but in order to make a living I ended up as a freelance illustrator instead. I think it’s harder than ever now for someone to separate personal work from something commercial, so I want to find it for myself before it’s too late.