Scottsdale Vendor Spotlight: Steam Crow

1. How would you describe your style?

Steam Crow (me and my wife, Dawna) are a weird hybrid between cartoon and graphic design. We love vintage advertising, old time Cub/Girl Scouts, friendly monsters, and propaganda/WPA design.

2. Are there any artists / designers that you particularly look up to?

Well, sure! We love: Mike Mignola, Alphonse Mucha, Tony Diterlizzi, Dungeons & Dragons, Arthur Rackham, Tom Waits, the Arts & Crafts movement, Saturday Morning Cartoons, Halloween, antiques and more than we can list here.

3. What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own? 

We infuse our own quirks, personality, and viewpoint into our stuff. Some of it's funny, odd, and weird... but it's all US and it makes our work unusual. Most of our stuff has an "old meets new" feel.

4. What sort of things inspire you?  Where do you look for inspiration?

We're inspired by old movies, toys, cartoons, comics, Halloween, old signs, D&D, bands (Dawna and I were both in bands when we met), vintage illustration, kid's books... inspiration is EVERYWHERE!

5. When do you feel the most creative?

When I get to design Monster Scouts stuff. (Our odd-ball community.) I love drawing monsters, giving them a story, and sharing it with our Scouts.

. What's Monster Scouts all about?

It's our weird gang of folks who meetup, make stuff, do Monster Camps together, and even wear old timey uniforms. It's super-nerd (Scouts + Halloween) but it's been a ton of fun. We made up these "Spirit Badges" and the Scouts made up all of these other things that we're now doing. It's for anyone who wants to believe in Monsters.

7. What is your creative process like?

We're on the road an awful lot... so I sketch in the Vanotaur. The drawings are bad and all bumpy (because we're rambling down the highway) but it's where we just generate hours and hours of ideas. When we're back at the studio, we can select the best of them to take to completion. 

8. What's the coolest artistic tip you've ever received?

Use every single talent that you have.

9. Where can we learn more about you?

http://steamcrow.com/our-story/ and http://www.monsterscouts.com