Awesome Artists We’ve Found Around The Net: Steve Berry

Dave Jenks

1 year ago

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For years, Awesome Art We’ve Found Around The Net has been about two things only – awesome art and the artists that create it. With that in mind, we thought why not take the first week of the month to showcase these awesome artists even more? Welcome to “Awesome Artist We’ve Found Around The Net.” In this column, we are focusing on one artist and the awesome art that they create, whether they be amateur, up and coming, or well established. The goal is to uncover these artists so even more people become familiar with them. We ask these artists a few questions to see their origins, influences, and more. If you are an awesome artist or know someone that should be featured, feel free to contact me at any time at [email protected].This month we are very pleased to bring you the awesome art of…

Steve Berry

Steve Berry aka RobotWig is a visual artist based in the UK. He creates cinematic movie photography using practical effects, figures, miniatures and homemade sets with very little digital work, all created in his living room. He is completely self-taught and has been creating his images for three years now. He has put a lot of passion and effort into his work and hopes his love for the movies is expressed in his art.

JOBLO: What got you started as an artist?
STEVE: As soon as I got a pencil in my hand I was drawing, I can’t even remember how it started. I’ve always loved art in all it forms. I’ve worked as a Graphic Designer for 25 years but when the Covid pandemic led to lockdowns across the UK all my freelance work came to a halt. I decided to use the time to learn product photography and that soon progressed into miniature photography which was completely unintentional. At no point did I ever think about or contemplate miniatures, I only started using figures because I ran out of products to shoot from the kitchen cupboards. I wanted my photography work to be shot practically. I’ve worked on computers all my life so there was a deliberate shift to try and avoid any green screen and digitally over-processing my images and try and do as much physically and in-camera as possible, like they used to in the movies.

Who were some of your favorite artists growing up?
I’ve always been a huge movie fan since a really young age, so I am obviously a huge fan of Drew Struzan and his work influences me constantly. I love his vibrant exciting style. You see his poster, go see the movie and he’s completely nailed the feel and atmosphere in one illustration. It’s an amazing skill to have and I could look at his work for hours and always see something new. Edward Hopper is another favourite of mine. I love the calm before the storm element to his imagery. His work has so much atmosphere and I love how you can create a whole story of what may have happened, before and after, in all his paintings. It’s incredible that artists like this can really open up your imagination beyond the canvas. I could go on all day but I have to add that H.R. Giger is another favourite of mine. I’ve always been fascinated by his biomechanical style. He was truly a unique artist. There’s always this sense of dread in his imagery but also a sense of beauty at the same time. I had his book when I was about 13 and never put it down. My GCSE art piece was a homage to Giger (I didn’t do as good a job as him!)

Who do you really dig these days, follow on Instagram?
There are so many talented people on social media. I follow a lot of great artists from all different backgrounds; I used to illustrate Alternate movie posters, a few years back, so know quite a lot of amazing poster illustrators and now with the photography I create, I know a whole different community of artists. I feel bad to only list a few, as there are so many talented people out there, so please forgive me if your name isn’t here. I’ve tried to pick a selection of different artists:

Darkdesign – Nuno creates Alternate Movie Posters that should be for the actual movie!
Paul Shipper – Love Pauls style of illustration work
Nicography77 – Makes some truly realistic miniature car shots
Claydisarray – Handcrafts clay characters from lots of popular TV shows and movies
Photoy72 – Paul creates outdoor figure photography he has some great pieces he’s UK based but don’t know where he manages to find the sunshine
Hannah Gibson Glass – Hannah makes Lego Minifigure glass ornaments they are incredible
CCbookdesign – Cherie creates book covers her creations are so unique.

What advice would you have for budding artists today?
Be you and believe in yourself! I always think the most important thing is for your work to reflect you and who you are, don’t worry what others are doing. I personally think it’s important to have a style of your own as people will instantly recognize your work if you put ‘YOU’ into it. It’s our artistic fingerprint and no one can be you, so put your heart and soul into your creative work and it’ll shine through. We all recognise famous artists and that’s why we revisit their work.

What should we be looking out for from you in the future?
I’m hoping some opportunities will arise for my style of work. I’d love to be able to get my work seen as an art form, work with some of the manufacturers of the figures I shoot and take it much further. The possibilities are endless and I have so many movies I haven’t done yet.

Being a fansite, we have to ask you… What are some of your favorite movies/TV shows of all time?
I have so many movies I love as I’m into so many genres. I love a good western, horror, sci-fi, or action film but a few of the top ones for me are: Alien, I just think that movie is timeless, and Aliens (obviously!) is probably one of the greatest sci-fi action movies ever made. I’m a huge fan of Back to the Future, it’s so much fun. Any Guillermo Del Toro movie – I absolutely love his work, and others such as; Robocop, Total Recall, E.T., One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, In the Heat of the Night, The Thing, Gremlins, Star Wars – too many to list but you can tell I’m an 80’s kid. TV shows I love are; What We Do in the Shadows, Succession, The Boys, The Last of Us, Barry and Severance. I’m quite partial to some old-school US comedies too, like Golden Girls, Cheers, ALF, and some of my UK Favourites like Alan Partridge, Bottom and Ab Fab – again, I could be here all day!

Scroll down to check out some of our favorite art pieces from Steve as we continue to follow his journey across his Website and social media hubs: Instagram / Twitter / linkedin / Tumbler / YouTube / Go Fund Me

Abe Sapien