I have featured
John Woo sometime ago in
Swide online magazine and I cannot say how fortunate for me to have a round two with this talented artist. This time around, you will get to know him more as a graphic designer!
John, once again, thanks so much for letting me to feature you and this time, I will have some different questions for you. I know you are both a graphic designer and an illustrator, so which job do you think is more challenging?
Designer is my full time job,and illustrator is my part time, which I can do freely. Since this part time job lets me challenge new things, it is more challenging for me. However, I love design too so sometime I can not separate two thing.
You are correct, sometimes I cannot separate illustration and design as they are like left hand and right hand to me. So if you could only use 3 adjectives to describe your works, what will they be? Why?
Fun, making something just for fun.
Fantasy, draw my fantasy.
Daily life, my works reflect my daily life.
Fantasy it is. When I look at your works, I sometimes feel like I am entering a new world and I think this is why your works have caught my eyes. I have been very fond of your He Wears It series but I do have a question for you: how come there is no Japanese manga characters? If you would draw one manga character in the future, who would you draw and which brand would you use?
Beside the Hollywood movie characters, there are some Japanese cartoon characters I like such as Son Goku (Dragon Ball). There are many interesting characters which inspire me but I've not really planned to draw them yet. Hopefully you'll see them in the further future.
Son Goku is always my favorite Japanese manga character and I would love to see which brand you will pair with him. I notice there are a lot of interesting flash mini projects on your site. Which one was the toughest for you to create?
'Concert' is the toughest one on my site, because it took me the longest time to do that. After I've finished it, the file was crashed. The final version shows only 1/4 length of the whole project.
It's sad that the there is no way to recover the file or else I would love to see the complete project. Well, up to this day, which flash mini project/ illustration series can best represent you?
Actually all of my works are representing my feeling at that moment, but I think 'HE WEARS IT' can most represent me of what I think and like, and most people know me through this project. Also, the "WATERCOLOR BOOK" is representing my life.
I agree, HE WEARS IT is what made me want to do a feature on you as the images are unique and edgy. Finally, if you could collaborate with a fashion house to work on a project, which fashion house would you choose and what kind of project would you want to do?
A few fashion houses have contacted me for creating projects with them. I welcome every fashion house to do some illustrations like he wears it, as you never know what the chemical reaction will happen if you mix a character with a fashion house, just like no one had ever expected to see Darth Varder wears band of outsider.
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Now it is time for some trivia questions!
Sheep or Horse?
Sheep, it is a very peaceful and harmless animal.
Comme des Garcons or Rick Owens?
Comme des Garcons, the brand always come out with unique look.
Blue or Yellow?
I liked Blue color when I was young, and I'm getting more into yellow when I'm getting older.
HTML 5 or Flash?
I would like to work with flash, because it's more fun to work with. I hope someday iPad can be view flash.
Digital Art or Hand Drawn Art?
Of course Hand Drawn Art, which is unique.
Tokyo or New York?
I love Tokyo, but I guess I love New York, too, because I've never been there.
Superman or Spiderman?
I prefer batman, and I don't like spiderman.
Summer or Winter?
Depend on the place, I hate summer in Hong Kong, which is crazy hot and humid.
White or Red Wine?
Depend on what kind of food I am having that day.
Ice cream or Popsicle?
Ice cream is always my favorite.
Once again, thank you so much to John for answering some of my questions and I am excited to see what he has in store for us in the coming future. All images are courtesy of John Woo and you can visit his
official website if you want to see more of his works (trust me, you will want to see his flash projects).
