In a little house not too far from the beach in Cornwall, UK there lives an illustrator by the name of Ben O’Brien (aka Ben the Illustrator) who has animated and directed music videos for Sony Japan, Domino and Skint Records. But like others who followed his passion he quit his day job to follow his love for illustration.

His scenery pieces, which he appropriately names “Wish You Were Here,” have the ability to take you to a beautiful waterfall or in the midst of wave. Doing projects for Vice Magazine and Smart Cars has propelled his own work to new heights, so Ben can now talk about becoming an illustrator with his own sense of style.

Plateau: For those who reading about you for the first time Ben. Could you tell our readers a little about yourself?

Ben O'Brien: I'm based in Cornwall, UK. All I've ever been able to do is draw, since I was a kid.  Nowadays I work with my wife, Fi, who manages our business, takes care of lots of online projects and also thinks up a lot of ideas for my illustration work.  We're music obsessives, and take a lot of inspiration from good music, like The Polyphonic Spree, The Go! Team and a lot of hip-hop.
P: Where did you start as an artist?

BB: When I left school I moved to London to go to college, then I ended up studying animation, this was in the late 90s, when there was a lot of exciting stuff going on in music videos, so when I graduated I got really into the music/film/animation thing and animated and directed some music videos for Skint Records (in the UK), Sony Japan and Domino (in the US), through this I ended up being creative director at a small animation and design studio in London, it was great and I got to work on all sorts of projects, from mixed-media art projects to animation for kids TV.  While I was working there I was also doing illustration jobs on the side, then one day I realized that it was those jobs that were keeping me excited, kept my heart beating, you know?  So I had my epiphany and quit my job in the studio and went solo, just focusing on my drawing and artwork, that was about four or five years ago now, and alls good.

P: So who or what other artist where you inspired by?

BB: I could list a million!  I've always loved artists that can do something really simple, but still make something special, like Keith Haring and Schultz (Charlie Brown is easily to best character ever designed), so even though when I illustrate a landscape it's got a lot of stuff going on, I still try and keep characters pretty simple.  I love what Takeshi Murakami does, conceptually and creatively.  I saw him doing a talk in Tokyo a couple of years ago; he has such a great spirit, very influential on me.  My wife and I are also huge fans of early 80s graffiti, mostly from NYC, because those guys really dedicated themselves to their art, and did something so fresh, and they really knew a thing or two about colour.  When I was a kid my buddy gave me the 'Subway Art' book and it blew me away, I copied those pieces forever, trying to just get close to the vibrant colour schemes they had.

P: So you have some really special pieces and I was wondering what are you thinking about when creating them? Where does each piece of work start at?

BB: Most of my work is landscapes, Fi and I love to travel and walk around and go on adventures, and while we're travelling about I get a lot of ideas from what I see, trees, waves, hills, cities all of it, then I have to try and get those feelings into a piece of artwork.  Like if you see a waterfall and it feels epic and exciting, then when you make an illustration of it, then the artwork has to be epic and exciting.  I always draw things first on paper, completely detailed, I love to draw, feels very natural, then I scan it into Adobe Illustrator and do the clean vector artwork.  When I'm creating pieces, I try and sort of daydream off to the place I'm creating, so if I'm art working a hectic city, I have to listen to crazy music and think right, but if I'm doing a mellow forest, I have to feel all mellow.

P: I noticed that a lot of your pieces contain natural elements. Is there a reason for that?

BB: Ah yeah, like I said I love the outdoors, nature is so important to everything, I feel like if I can make artwork of the natural world and it inspires people to get out and enjoy their environment, then I'm doing a good thing!

P: What can we expect to see from you in the near future? Are they any new projects you are working on? Any major goals you’re reaching for?

BB: We're always keeping busy; we're currently working on a couple of commercial projects, and some paper toy projects.  We manage a project with our character Speakerdog, a paper toy Speakerdog project, and we've been bringing together a series of customized paper toys by artists in Mexico that we're hoping to launch by the end of the year, it should be awesome.  We've also got a special exhibition/shop opening up this Christmas in Bristol (UK) with a bunch of awesome artists. We've got some book things coming together too, stay tuned in 2009 for all that!