I actually started out as a writer and then converted to illustration because I realised that there was a dearth of good illustrators in genre fiction, at least in Australia at that time.

Good and bad ideas both come from the same fountain of speculation and experiment.

Sometimes I write captions on the in-flight magazines and then replace them in the seat pocket.

Drawing a good picture is like telling a really good lie - the key is in the incidental detail.

The detail adds an element of unexpected something. All fiction is false; what makes it convincing is that it runs alongside the truth. The real world has lots of incidental details, so a painting also has to have that element of imperfection and irregularity, those incidental details.

It's only a very small percentage of creative thinking that ends up connecting with a wider audience, and even then, any success is quite unpredictable.