Artist: Mike Hall

Mike Hall

Michael Hall studied graphics and illustration at Cardiff College of Art and Design – “Howard Gardens.” In 1982, he moved to London and began work as a freelance artist for a Soho studio working within a large team on visualization, concept art, all the way through to finished illustration. Since then, Hall has worked for numerous studios and clients worldwide on a variety of projects for advertising, publishing, and packaging. 

Some of the work Hall created as a result of seeing an image that inspired a concept. For example, “the Emerald Snake illustration came out of a photograph I saw of an Emerald Boa draped over a branch and for some reason the coils, to me at least, resembled arms, as if it were leaning over a fence,” says Hall. “Once I had devised a basic concept, I had to figure out a way of contouring the scales around the arms. The solution to this consisted of wearing fishnet sleeves and taking digital shots to use as a guide layer within Adobe Photoshop. Part of the fun to creating images from scratch is to think out of the box and devise your own methods of attaining the desired results. This often involves hours of experimentation with the multitude of modes and effects Photoshop has to offer.” Emerald Valley was published by Ballistic Publishing in its Expose 4 Annual. Monique was another Illustration created for and published by Ballistic in Exotique 2.

Much of Hall’s illustrative work is commissioned by packaging design clients. “There is a substantial amount of work required in this area, one which I have been involved with for many years,” continues Hall. The Orchid illustration, for example, was used by a Chinese paint firm. 

All illustrations shown here have been created with Photoshop and Corel Painter using a Wacom tablet on an Apple Mac G4 Dual 1.4 running OS 10.4.

More of Hall’s illustration work, as well as examples of his traditional painting and photography, can be viewed online at www.squaregg.com.