Michael Byers is an illustrator based in Hamilton, Ontario who creates graphic editorial illustrations and sequential comics. His work has appeared in a wide range of newspapers, magazines and websites, including Politico, Entertainment Weekly, Fast Company, Newsweek, The Atlantic, Gawker, and many more. Byers says “I've been inspired by comic artists old and new,” and the result is work that is bright, smart, and very cool.

MY LIFE:
I live and work in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. I’ve been illustrating full-time since 2007.

I grew up with my mother and older sister. I also have a younger half sister that my Dad had with his second wife. Eventually he would go on to re-marry and move to Vermont with our stepmother, where they lived for six years until he passed in 2010. We still get to go down and see our stepmother every Christmas.I had a relatively easy-going childhood. I remember drawing a lot when I was a kid. The first type of project I can ever remember making was little catalogues of WWF wrestlers that I really liked. I was very much into wrestling at the time. I also pored over many books on how to draw cartoons. My grandmother will also tell you that I ruined every one of her note pads by drawing on the corners of every page making little animation flip books.

I had a lot of time between finishing high school and when I went back to art school. In that time I did a few jobs. I worked as a janitor for four years at our local YMCA. Then I worked in a couple factories, tried selling gym memberships, and went into construction before I started art school. I graduated from Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada with a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Illustration degree.

MY WORKSPACE:
I work in a room in my house that I call my studio. It’s great because I have large windows that let in lots of natural light—not important for my work but just nice to have shining in. It’s in the front of the house so I get to see people walking by. I have lots of great work around, whether it’s posters, postcards, or original art from myself and many talented friends and people I admire.

HOW I MAKE MY ILLUSTRATIONS:
I do thumbnails first to try to work out the composition. If I figure out one I like, and because I am not that confident that I can replicate it exactly as I have it, I scan the thumbnail into Photoshop. I enlarge it, print it, then use that to create a tighter sketch, which I scan and send off to the client. I normally send a few different solutions for each illustration for the art director to pick from. Once the sketch has been approved I enlarge it again to the size I’m going to do my final. I will usually do a final tight sketch that I will use to ink. I use a felt tip pen to ink the final with my light box. Then I scan the final art and use Photoshop to color and add texture. I probably do a lot of unnecessary steps, but it seems to work for me.

MY FIRST BIG BREAK:
My very first published job was in 2006, the summer before entering my final year of art school. It was a quarter-page illustration for Explore magazine, a Canadian outdoor magazine. Later, a conversation I had with my friend Dan Page got me thinking about getting a rep. Once I signed on with my fantastic rep Sari, I started to really get going. For me it wasn’t one particular job that launched my career. It was more like a series of baby steps. Each year I started getting new clients and then they turned into repeat clients. It built up from there. I feel like it was a slow burn. It took a while to take off.

MY INFLUENCES:
People with strong drawing abilities, like Norman Rockwell and Albert Dorne. More contemporary people would be Istvan Banyai, Marcos Chin, Tomer Hanuka, Yuko Shimizu, John Hendrix and recently Kim Jung Gi.

MY MOST ADMIRED CREATIVE PERSON:
I’d have to say my friend Jay Stephens. He’s a fantastic cartoonist. He’s won many awards; he’s had two animated cartoons and many comic books under his belt. He has been such an inspiration with his ability to tell stories, come up with unique characters and with the confidence in how he works. He just happens to be one of my best friends. He always keeps me motivated with words of encouragement if I’m feeling negative about my work in any way.

MY CREATIVE INSPIRATION:
I’ve been reading a lot of books and finding them really inspiring. It’s really amazing how much inspiration can be sparked when you dig into a good book. I also get inspired by old vintage illustrations from the early 20th Century. Lately I’ve found myself really interested in comic book art. I’ve been inspired by comic book artists old and new like Jack Kirby, Moebius, Nathan Fox, Kagan McLeod and Paul Pope, to name a few. They all have fantastic ways of drawing and creating a narrative. I find myself drawn to this type of art because I want to create more sequential art myself.

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE OF WORKING ALONE:
The discipline to work when I want to procrastinate. It’s a lot more difficult when you don’t have someone breathing down your neck. Also balancing home life and work life. That can get tricky at times.

A MEMORABLE ASSIGNMENT FROM THE PAST YEAR:
I’d have to say it was an editorial job I did for Politico magazine. It’s weird to say I had a lot of fun doing it because it was a pretty serious story. But I think that’s why I had so much fun. I’m usually called upon to add my humor to illustrations. This one was different in that the story had a more somber tone to it. It was a refreshing change to do something with a more sensitive feeling—in this case a story about a grandfather telling his grandson about his time in Vietnam.

DREAM ASSIGNMENT:
The top of my bucket list of assignments has to be a cover of The New Yorker. I would absolutely love to do that. Also, I’d love to do book covers.

MY FAVORITE ART DIRECTOR:
There have been too many to list here. But currently I really enjoy working with Amy Sawchenko. She’s the art director for a magazine in Alberta, Canada called Apple. It’s a health magazine. I’ve been doing a regular illustration for them. I have such a fun time doing these illustrations because she’s open to my ideas and encourages me to think outside the box. Usually this is because she gives me a small brief that has some freedom for me to come up with my own concepts. Occasionally they’ll have some ideas that they’d like to me to with but then I can usually add to that or push it to make it more of my own. I feel like I’ve done some good work for them.

SOME OF MY FAVORITE ILLUSTRATORS:
Daniel Fishel, Pete Ryan, Ryan Snook, and the other great talented folks in the illustration group I’m in called Illustration Confidential. They’re all hard workers with a great work ethic. I also admire Yuko Shimizu, Dan Page, Victo Ngai, John Hendrix, Chris Buzelli, Red Nose Studios, Julia Breckenreid and Jillian Tamaki. They’re all constantly creating fantastic and inspiring work.

OTHER WORK:
I’ve fortunately been so busy with editorial work that there hasn’t been much time to do any personal work. I’m currently working on a comic book with Filip Vukcevic. He’s a writer I met from Toronto who loves writing comics and other great stories. I did do a fun job for Gawker last year that was a comic for a State Farm ad. It was a six-page comic that they turned into a widget.

HOW I STAY CURRENT:
I think that I’m slowly reinventing myself. Ever since I’ve been reading more books I’ve been getting more and more interested in writing and storytelling. I’ve been leaning a little towards the comic side of things because at some point I want to create a graphic novel. I figured working with a writer on a comic is a good way to break into the narrative side of things. Another way I try to stay current is by just drawing as much as I can in my sketchbook. The goal is to become better and better at drawing with using as little reference material as possible.

HOW I PROMOTE MYSELF:
I occasionally send out an email blast but I usually leave it up to my agent. She’ll do some email blasts and we send out a postcard mailer once in a while. It’s so easy to fall behind on promoting when you get busy with work. I post stuff on social media a lot. I’ll post new work on my blog and that gets sent to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Then I will post sketches from my sketchbook on Instagram. I’ve had a couple jobs that came to me because of the sketches I posted on my Instagram account. I was surprised at that.

ADVICE FOR SOMEONE STARTING OUT:
Hand your stuff in on time, don’t have too big of an ego, be willing to work with others, and remember that there are hundreds of students graduating every year behind you that would gladly do the work. You’re getting paid to create images. Remember that and remember why you got into this in the first place and have fun. Otherwise find something else that will make you happy.

See more Michael Byers illustrations, new work and updates:
Michael Byers website
Blog
Twitter: @michaelbyers
Tumblr
Instagram: @michaelbyers
Rep (Levy Creative)Save