Sam Gilbey is a freelance art director, designer and illustrator based in the UK with over twelve years experience in the digital/creative industries. His distinctive observational illustrations are inspired by a love for popular culture in general (and large robots in particular). Painted digitally by hand, they've been featured online and on television, and also in magazines, books, comics, exhibitions, and a movie test shoot.
Describe your theme in 5 words...
Ukiyo-e Style Shoot Em Up
From where do you draw your inspiration?
I had the image of the girl and fan in my head for a long time. I actually took a photo in China in 2011 with that composition, and for a while I’d been thinking how I might use it for something.
Why did you choose to showcase your work in partnership with a global brand like PlayStation?
I’ve been a gamer for many many years, and the PlayStation brand is synonymous with gaming, so in short it was an honour to be invited to contribute. Videogames have always been a strong influence on my work, in both the realms of design and illustration.
What’s it like seeing your work fully digitised on The Studio?
It’s been really exciting to see the theme develop from what I initially saw in my head, and then working with the guys at The Studio to see what was realistically possible. Best of all I’ve had to compromise my vision very little, and in some cases, it’s ended up even cooler than I was hoping for.
How did you adapt your work – in terms of both the feel of The Studio space and the physical parameters of PlayStation’s XrossMediaBar (XMB)?
As I say, I had the image of the girl and the fan in my mind already, and was wondering where I might be able to use it, so actually, when I started looking at the layout of the interface and the spatial restrictions, the composition actually balanced with it brilliantly. it was just about keeping the girl out to the left side, and letting the fan taking up the rest of the space below the XMB.
The worlds of gaming and art have grown closer and closer over the years – how do you think they fit together and how do you see the relationship progressing?
For a long time, it felt like everyone was obsessed with game graphics getting closer and closer to ‘reality’. Marketing campaigns, for hardware in particular, often focused on processing power and polygon counts. Yes, there’ll always be a place for that, but over the last few years it’s been amazing to see how different game designers and developers in both mainstream and indeo studios have truly started to let their imaginations run free, and as such we’ve seen so many different art styles in gaming. Ultimately it means that games can be marketed on what makes them unique, rather than what makes them the same. In short, as both a gamer and a design/illustrator strongly influenced by said hobby, it’s a very exciting time.
If you could have created any video game throughout history, what would it be?
There are so many gaming milestones that it would have been amazing to work on retrospectively, but no doubt at the time the designers and developers didn’t necessarily know how influential their games would become. If I had to pick one though, I’d probably say Super Mario 64. At the time it was as if they’d somehow managed to concentrate sheer joy into a denser form than anyone had managed before.
If you could turn a PlayStation into a piece of art/design, what would you do with it?
I’d love to see a PS3 Transformer. I wouldn’t have the skills to make it, but I guess I could draw it!
What’s your favourite video game?
I’d have to say Ico on the PS2. An advert for PS2’s much-hyped ‘Emotion Engine’ if ever there was one. Few games convey such a convincing sense of space, with the castle being both your captor and all the while gradually opening up before you. Beautiful, haunting and evocative in a way that, to my mind, has never been bettered.
