April 2002
David Cockburn
Let me introduce myself. My name is Dave and I am a freelance illustrator and animator
living in the UK (right on the edge of the London A to Z in case you are curious). I am married with two Siamese cats and we all work in the same studio.
I originally trained as a Graphic designer at Kingston Polytechnic but in the first week
of my final year I decided to take some time out as graphics just wasn't funny enough. Over the next two years I worked in a couple of dubious computer graphics companies using Amiga's and Atari's. Drawing on
computers at that time was pretty much like bricklaying with a mouse, no serious competition to real world media. The games were pretty good though.
I eventually returned to college, joined the illustration course and made an animated
film called "Herb Sachet and his Big Band" (a group of big animals crash a Morris dancing festival and squash the world).
On leaving college in the late eighties I worked freelance in the London animation
industry and over the years started doing more and more illustration.
Five years ago I eventually gave up on real paper and pencil as there was no undo and the
games were rubbish. I started out using Fractal Painter to color scanned line work but before long it dawned on me that it would be way faster to just draw straight into the computer with my drawing tablet, and it
was.
That was pretty much my Illustration M.O. until I saw a magazine advert for Xara X, I
couldn't quite believe the images were created in a vector program. Being a bit of a software junky I downloaded the demo and gave it a go. I was amazed. Those lines, that color handling, that speed! I immediately
started using it halfway through a project and haven't stopped yet.
What else can I tell you? My favorite driving music is Frank Sinatra and I think the
world would be a much nicer place if more people shared this opinion. (try it you may be surprised).
The work you see here spans my history with Xara X. Hope you enjoy it.
Huge Regards Dave SqueakyPics
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