Biography
Iconic Lines has been established to showcase and market the work of artist and illustrator Simon Britnell. Simon has worked in a variety of media, conventional paint on canvas, airbrush and digitally. His work has previously favoured natural landscape subjects but Iconic Lines is primarily focused on his stylish studies of vehicles that are considered iconic for their era - hence the name!
Simon has also worked as a professional artist in film visual effects and the videogame industry for over 25 years.
Influences
Simon Britnell was born in 1964 in a small village near Newark Nottinghamshire UK. During the 1980s he worked as a freelance artist and illustrator painting landscapes and commissions, including pet portraits and some illustration work for press and advertising.
With the need to support a family it was time to diversify and Simon could see the potential of computer graphics. As the Computer Game industry began to take off Simon bought himself an early Commodore computer and taught himself the skills needed to produce digital graphics. He achieved his first post as a Computer Graphic Artist at Spidersoft, Lincoln in 1993, helping to make some the early console and PC games of the era, including Pinball simulation games.
To further his career, Simon and the family moved to West Sussex to join Mindscape International and later, Electronic Arts (EA Games). He remained there for 10 years as an environment artist, creating game-worlds for some of the Harry Potter game titles, Theme Park World, Battlefield Modern Combat and F1 Championship 2000.
In 2008 Simon again evolved his skills by moving to film visual effects and joined The Moving Picture Company working on the films: Prince of Persia, Narnia - Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Harry Potter - Deathly Hallows part one, Clash of the Titans, Maleficent, Guardians of the Galaxy and Oscar winners for Best Visual Effects – Hugo and Jungle Book.
In recent years, Simon found some time to return to conventional art. His career has allowed him to be creative but he enjoys the opportunity to simplify the process removing the technical nature of digital CGI work and returning with a kind of nostalgia to the pleasure of working “analogue” with paint and canvas.
Why Paint Cars?
For many working in a creative career, you rarely get to work on a subject that totally dovetails with your own interests. This has certainly been the case working as a digital 3D modeller for the majority of my career. Ultimately you are trying to capture someone else's vision within a team. Day to day, the act of being an artist, creating or recreating is great- but to paint for oneself, why not indulge?
To create your best work therefore, I think it really helps to be passionate about the subject, the desire to understand it or capture what’s great about it or how you feel about it, really comes across in a painting. I have many interests that I have enjoyed painting and my latest fascination is iconic engineering.
