Come with us on a deep dive into the last twenty years of Sam Gilbey’s freelance illustration practice. We’ll find out what inspired him, how he got through difficult periods, and what advice he’d give to up-and-coming illustrators.
If you’re a person who knows and follows the world of visual arts, I’d only have to say “painterly pop culture portraits”, and your mind would go straight to Sam Gilbey‘s work. With a client roster that includes Disney, Marvel, Sony, and Universal, there’s no doubt that Gilbey’s distinct and hyper-realistic style has brought him success in his nearly two-decade-long career.
His illustrations have appeared everywhere, from billboards, comics, books, and magazines to licensed prints, exhibitions, movie packaging, TV, and film. And he has no plans to slow down anytime soon.
But before we get to the ‘what’s next’ part, let’s get to know the man behind the artwork and how he landed some of these bucket list clients and projects.
Gilbey doesn’t remember a time when he wasn’t drawing as a kid, but before he got to illustration, his education focused more on Fine Art. After completing an A-level in Fine Art, he studied a dual honours degree in Visual Arts and Music at Keele University.
It wasn’t until a few years later that he realised he could combine his love of commercial pop/art with a painterly style and eventually make a living from it. The change happened gradually, as Gilbey’s career began as a website and graphic designer.
“Illustration commissions were initially relatively few and far between, but over time, I got busier and busier until around nine years ago when I committed to it full-time,” he says.
One of his first jobs as an illustrator was doing magazine tutorials for painting in Photoshop and Painter in magazines including Computer Arts, where he would break down how he’d illustrated something step by step. Gilbey admits: “I don’t know exactly how much that shaped my career, although trying to explain specific techniques to others certainly means that you end up understanding them a bit better than you might have done otherwise!”
It also gave him a chance to try out different software and ideas, giving him a good grounding for moving forward with up-to-date techniques and working to strict deadlines. Getting to make artwork for double-page spreads, the occasional cover for those magazines, and some editorial for Official PlayStation Magazine felt like a pretty big commission to Gilbey at the time.
However, he adds: “I learnt an important lesson about freelancing in those days too, though when one of the magazines I’d been working regularly for went into liquidation without warning, and I was suddenly £5k short.” Since then, he has ensured that he has clients and projects in more than one area – advice that freelancers in any stream of the creative industries should head.
Gilbey names Thomas William Chantrell’s classic Star Wars poster as “the single biggest influence” on him in terms of inspiration and “falling in love with pop culture illustration”. He adds: “I adored the drama and excitement it conveyed.”
Later, it was John Romita Sr’s depiction of Spider-Man and animé like Akira that captivated his interest, and this was before he studied art history and threw that into the mix, too. If anyone wants to know who Gilbey is inspired by now, look no further than his Instagram followers. “I’m sure there are plenty of brilliant artists that I’ve yet to discover, and I’m fortunate to have become friends with lots of great artists thanks to social media, so I have that to thank it for at least!” he says.
When finding his own style, Gilbey was immediately drawn to Corel Painter when he started working digitally. He attributes this to his experience with painting in traditional media and his Fine Art qualification. These days, though, he mostly paints in Photoshop and occasionally in Procreate on the iPad.
Gilbey explains: “My love for classic illustrated movie poster art from the 1980s, Marvel comics, and fine art – with David Hockney being a particularly big influence – had already fused in my head as a teenager.
“I often equate it to starting a band – you start out playing cover versions of your favourite bands, then over time you start trying your own material, and eventually you (hopefully) end up with something unique, even if it’s wearing its influences on its sleeve.”
He notes that, with artwork, that process can take years and never stops since you’re always evolving and absorbing new techniques and styles. “Occasionally in my work, both personal and commercial, I’ve done parody pieces and homages to a particular painting or genre style, so whilst my work is probably recognisable, I also enjoy leaning into different genres and eras as a brief or idea demands,” Gilbey adds, referencing his Bojack Horseman print in the style of David Hockney’s Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures).
In Gilbey’s view, every project represents some kind of challenge, whether a deadline, a tricky brief, or difficulty getting on the same wavelength as a client. “I think with experience, you get better at interpreting client feedback, though, where they are seeing something from a point of view, and there may be a way to address the issue they’re having without having to jettison something about the piece that you really like,” he says.
Sometimes, clients are just right, though, so you do need to make adjustments and welcome their suggestions. Overall, though, Gilbey says he really enjoys the collaborative process with clients, and he’ll always suggest ways to improve something, even if it wasn’t obvious in the concept stage.
He adds: “The other classic problem that freelancers have is converging projects and deadlines and, even if you’ve agreed to totally reasonable timelines initially, it only takes one round of client feedback to be delayed, and suddenly you have deadlines getting closer to each other than you’d like.
“I’ve found that I work best when I have a few things to work on concurrently because the truth is, you may have the whole day set aside for something, but really, you’re only going to be able to focus on it deeply for some of the day.”
This translates to working in short bursts of a few hours on one project in the morning before switching to another in the afternoon. This means you have a fresh mind and perspective when returning to the first project.
One of Gilbey’s tips for reassuring yourself as a creative is saving regular versions or screenshots of what you’re making as you go along. “Then when you feel like you’re never going to be able to finish it and you’re not getting anywhere, look back at how far you’ve come,” he says. “It’s amazing how that can really then give you the extra oomph to keep the pressure on and keep making improvements until you’re finally happy with it.”
In case it’s unclear from his portfolio, Gilbey loves film, so some of his favourite projects have been making covers for physical media, often for reissues of classics, such as True Romance or The Karate Kid Trilogy. “In my teens, I couldn’t get enough of kung-fu movies, so being able to make new cover art for the films of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Jet Li, and others has been a particular highlight,” he says.
He also mentions creating a steel book for Spider-Man: Far From Home as a highlight, working with Sony Pictures and Marvel via Poster Posse, the pop art collective/agency that he is part of. “Eight-year-old me will never get over it.”
A couple of other career-defining projects came up in 2023 in the form of two UK billboard campaigns for the BBC and Channel 4 (the former for their Glastonbury coverage on the iPlayer and the latter for a rebrand). He says: “That was a period I remember fondly, even though at the time it was very intense as I recall I’d agreed to one project, and the other came in not too long later, and of course, they were both dream projects so had to be done.
“Those were both done via my agency, Central Illustration and my amazing agent, Jules, always had my back and gave me the support I needed, as she’s also done on other projects since then.”
With so much going on already, Gilbey admits that he rarely gets time for passion projects but says he has “lots of ideas floating around [his] head that [he’s] dying to get down”. He adds: “It’s amazing what you can find the time to fit in when you have an idea burning in your mind.
“I love to do personal projects anyway, but it does also feel like it’s important to do them from time to time, at least because, first of all, we have to feed that algorithm after all, but much more importantly, I do feel that personal work is that way to find (and also refine) your unique voice and style.”
He notes that clients are also typically going to commission you to make something similar to what they can already see in your portfolio, so “even if you know you could do a particular type of gig and smash it if it’s not in your portfolio and you’re not getting hired to do it, try and find the time to go ahead and do it anyway”.
Unexpectedly, another memorable moment of Gilbey’s is from his very early freelance career, when he was doing “a spot of journalism” for design and illustration news portal Pixelsurgeon. Through this, he got the chance to interview filmmaker Edgar Wright and, afterwards, sent his agent a fan art piece that he’d done for Shaun of the Dead, “just to say thanks and hoping he might appreciate it”, he says.
To his surprise, Wright emailed him back directly almost immediately, saying how much he loved it and requesting a print version for his office. “Naturally, I was overjoyed and more than happy to oblige, and I believe he still has it on the wall now, 20 years later,” Gilbey adds.
He has even continued to send Wright fan art pieces since and says he’s always been incredibly supportive, introducing his work to Simon Pegg. On a few occasions, Wright has also commissioned Gilbey to make some Scott Pilgrim artwork for screenings at the New Beverly Cinema in LA and another time to create some artwork that appears in one of his films.
“My poster of Sparks is only seen briefly in his 2021 documentary, The Sparks Brothers, but painting this homage to classic epic movie posters like Ben Hur and El-Cid (because in the film, they talk about having wanted to be the biggest band in the world) was a joy,” Gilbey explains.
In addition to all this, Wright recommended Gilbey to fellow filmmaker Rian Johnson, who was looking for an artist to illustrate a custom lunch box as a wrapped gift for Dave Bautista on Knives Out: Glass Onion (he’s an avid collector).
Gilbey has been hoping to do more in the sports sector in addition to movie-related commissions. Recently, he landed a new project for Portuguese football club Benfica as it celebrates its 120th anniversary: creating a licensed print featuring ten legendary players who played the most games for the club during their careers.
Several other brilliant artists have created prints, all in totally different styles, and they’re currently on display at the entrance of the stadium in Lisbon and part of the official tour. Gilbey also created a print with Historiart for the national Portugal men’s team for the Euros last year. He says, “This is an exciting and relatively new area for me that I’m looking forward to exploring further.”
Gilbey also remembers that, about a decade ago, he was regularly contributing prints to gallery group shows, often in the States in LA, San Francisco and NYC for galleries including Gallery1988, Hero Complex Gallery and Spoke Art. “After stepping back from the scene a bit these past five years, it was great to create a new Wes Anderson print for The Grand Budapest Hotel for Spoke Art’s official exhibition at the end of last year, continuing a series I first began over ten years ago, and hopefully an area I can contribute more to again moving forward,” Gibley adds.
“As for new stuff, you just never know exactly what will see the light of day, so I’m afraid I’ll have to keep it vague (evasive, I know, sorry!), but I’m pleased to say that I’ve started the year with new work for physical media, gaming, film and sports in the works.”
Above all, Gilbey’s main goal is to just keep going. While he recognises that he’s had the good fortune to work on some amazing projects—as well as work extremely hard—and hopes that more might come his way, he wants to stay focused on what’s in front of him at the moment.
“Saying all that, I especially hope I can make more Star Wars and Marvel artwork, and maybe even something for Superman someday,” says Gilbey. “Basically, if I drew it as a kid, I hope I can draw it in some official capacity as an adult and still remember that childhood feeling while I do it.”
He also has ambitions to create illustrated key art for a movie release that’s seen everywhere. “It’s incredibly unlikely, of course, but you never know,” he adds.
Many aspiring illustrators or creatives who are just starting out are probably reading this thinking, ‘Wow, what a career!’ and maybe you’re wondering how you can get to that level yourself. Well, Gilbey has a few words of wisdom to share.
“Being a full-time illustrator is often tough, but if you can be consistent as you develop your style across personal work (and client work as and when it comes in), over time, you can develop a body of work that shows potential clients (and potential agents) that you’d be great to work with,” he says.
If you’re not getting the commissions you want, he recommends joining a collective or maybe even setting up with others for the sake of encouragement and collaboration. Similarly, if you’re not getting the briefs you want from clients – or any briefs at all – Gilbey advises setting some for yourself in the area you want to work in, whether it’s for editorial, album covers, or billboard posters, to show your skills in that area to potential clients.
“Leaping right into an illustration career might mean you can dedicate all your time to being an illustrator (other than all the admin, of course, that comes from being self-employed), and that may work for some,” says Gilbey. However, building it up gradually over time whilst working steadily as a freelance designer worked the best (he describes it as “a short hop” rather than a leap).
On a more practical note, he explains that “as well as agreeing on terms with your client in writing in a contract, wherever possible, ask if a client can give you a percentage of the agreed fee up front”. Whether it’s 10% or 50%, it ensures that everyone is committed and can really help with the cash flow if you’re a freelancer.
“Other than that, try enjoying making things whenever you can, but equally, don’t beat yourself up if you’re just not feeling it some days, unless there’s a tight deadline, in which case, keep going – you got this!” says Gilbey. “If you’re stuck, go for a walk, a jog, play a video game, make a jigsaw, see a friend, eat a sandwich, whatever. Take your mind off it, and inspiration is bound to find you eventually.”
