17 - Dakarai Akil

Join us as we catch up with one of our 2024 Handsome Future winners, Molly McCammon. We talk about what she's learned over the past year, how she's tweaked her work to gain more commercial success, and what it's like to be an illustrator picking colours when you have Synesthesia. Check out Molly's portfolio over on our website! 

In this episode Tim talks us through his 15 years in illustration. From an initial love of collage, before pivoting to pen and ink and disagreeing with his tutors on the way to winning a D&AD New Blood Award. Today he is established as one of the most sought after in the business and has become a go to artist, for The New York Times and Star Wars.   Join us as we hear how growing up on a Virginian commune, surrounded by rattle snakes and snapping turtles, helped him develop his macabre brand of illustration. Why he holds his breath when he paints and how acting might just be his back-up plan.  View Tim's portfolio on the Handsome Frank website.

If you've travelled on the London Underground recently, you'll have seen the work of Charlie Davis. A Handsome Frank superstar since 2019, Charlie's profile has grown to new heights in the past few years and is now on show all over London. He joins us to share his journey—from starting out as a junior designer to making the leap into full-time illustration. Offering a fascinating insight into his craft, he reveals how making one small tweak to his work opened the door to increased commercial success, why he doesn't draw faces and explains why he prefers short deadlines.    www.handsomefrank.com/illustrators/charlie-davis    

Parisian-born Londoner Marylou Faure joined us at HFHQ to talk about the personal and professional journey, which has shaped her bold, bouncy, art style. In our final podcast of the year, Marylou discusses female empowerment, which is a central theme in her work and how she learned to love colour. We also cover how her 3D 'babes' come to life, her dream projects and whether Die Hard is a Christmas film.   Check out Marylou Faure's portfolio

On a brisk November day, we travelled by train to Dorset and sat down to talk with award winning illustrator Paul Blow. In a conversation that  spans the full length of his career, we discuss the highs and lows of being an illustrator for over three decades.   Paul talks to us about everything from awards, to losing his life's work, to why he avoided drawing smiley faces for so long. His bold conceptual illustrations often mix themes of humour, sadness and the absurd and his podcast almost perfectly mirrors the variety in his work.

In a Paris hotel room, beneath the Eiffel Tower, we finally tracked down the wonderful Luis Mendo. Join us for a ranging conversation, taking in a career designing magazines in 90's Amsterdam, a life changing decision to relocate to Tokyo and how his work as an illustrator was born from a language barrier. Trigger warning, contains mentions of AI that artists may find refreshing.  Check out Luis' portfolio at handsomefrank.com Feeling a strong desire to stroll through Tokyo with Luis? You're in luck! Join him on his daily routine in our 'Little Film About...Luis Mendo'. Watch now on vimeo    

Part illustrator, part model maker, part engineer and full time Handsome Frank royalty, paper artist Helen Musselwhite visited our studio for our 20th episode. 
 We catch up with perhaps our most analogue artist to discuss her childhood fascination with model villages, thinking in 3D, and how she uses her photography skills to bring her paper worlds to life. If you haven't seen it yet, you can watch our 'Little Film About...Helen Musselwhite' in full, here. Visit Helen's portfolio page at www.handsomefrank.com            

Matt Murphy brought his customary warmth and good conversation as he called in to see us and record podcast EP19. We discussed colour theory, great music and dream commissions past and (hopefully) future. 

Brooklyn's finest, Niege Borges, flew over to London to fill our studio with colour and recount stories of her art journey, her cat Shakira, and her inflatable sidekick Elizabeth.      

From driving taxis, sleeping in a gallery, to working in a homeless centre on Skid Row, Dakarai's journey to becoming a freelance artist is one of the most fascinating and eventful we've ever heard. Warning this podcast contains rattle snake references.