A Discussion with Michael Van Den Bosch
by Mike Lynch
Michael Van Den Bosch: a renowned, and established, character
designer takes some time out of his day to speak with us about his pencils,
hammers, Hallmark Cards, the Devil, and what it takes to be a great CG artist.
SQ - Tell us a little bit about yourself, where were you born?
When did you become interested in art or computers? ...You know: the basics.
MVDB - Hi, my name is Michael van den Bosch. I'm 32 years young
and live in the Netherlands.
According to my mother, I was born with a pencil. In other
words: when I was able to hold one, I did. So, me starting to draw goes way
back. And my mother even kept some of those drawings. I'm sorry to say, it was
me who didn't want to share those five-year-old drawings, but please believe
me when I say, I've made some progress since then... So, I have been interested
in art all of my life.
In my art school period (The Graphic Lyceum), I was learning
to be a commercial illustrator. During that time I was stationed for my traineeship
at Hallmark Cards. That's where the magic happened for me and I became a high
school "drop out." Working at Hallmark I saw all the artists coming
in to the company with their traditionally painted artwork, and trying to sell
it, to get displayed in stores all over the country. I realized this was what
I wanted to do. In this traineeship (1995), I decided to "drop out,"
get myself registered, and become self-employed - working as a freelance illustrator.
...Which I have been doing ever since.
Then there comes the time you have to create you're clients:
the people you sell your work to. I've always thought this is very hard, because
you have to sell your own work by saying, "I'm the best," "these
drawings are the best." This is not me. Because, first off all I know this
is not the best and second, I've always been told to be modest. But being too
modest doesn't sell as well, so, I had to find a way to be somewhere in the
middle. ...Or I could hire somebody to go out and do it for me, which also means
it would cost me money. My father has been a salesman working for Heineken most
of his life, and I am glad he helped me out many times by "displaying"
my work where ever he could.
Throughout the years I've been working for record companies,
creating CD covers, and covers for vinyl (12-inch) records. For many years I
have been drawing caricatures of famous Dutch soccer players for a magazine
called "Voetbal Totaal." I've also worked as a cartoon/comic-artist
for a hospital's newspaper. Creating greeting cards is still my everyday work,
and I've been doing this for over 11 years now for a couple of companies here
in the Netherlands. I guess this is also the reason why I am always aiming for
my artwork to have a message.
