Simon Gough

Simon has been an illustrator since early childhood. He was always drawing and painting at home as much as he could. This was carried into his education, where Simon took all of the arts subjects he could. He did the basics in everything he could find, from watercolours to oils, pencils to pastels, and clay to photography. He settled on Photoshop in his late University years as he was more into graphics and photography at the time. Simon's love of comics also started when he was very young, and it seemed inevitable that he would eventually combine the two interests. In his final year of University, Simon says he began "creating comic book covers to express the concern I had of the narrowminded middle class parent generation (from a personal angle), using misunderstood art pieces as my vehicle for explaining my point. I took Conceptual Art, so I can talk my way out of a paper bag!"

After finishing his University education, Simon struggled to find a niche that he could settle into for his artwork. He was still reading comics though. Simon invested in a cheap tablet and tested it out by colouring someone else's work, a Booster Gold piece by Joh James. This led Simon to just enjoy the freedom of painting and not having the stress of creating the image.  He just enjoys the painting more than he drawing. 

Simon continued to practice on lots of people's art, just for fun and experience. He was offered a couple of small gigs for no pay, but they went nowhere. He then coloured a full issue of 'The Lonely', which then disappeared into limbo, but it was paying work, so he had no complaints.  Simon also did a bit of work on Quarterstone Comics 'Savior' title.  Then Simon got into a regular stream of commission work, which continues to this day.  Eventually, after working alongside some of the most prolific artists in comics to cement a style and build a name, he was offered the colour work on DC's DC Universe Online video game, colouring the cut scenes. This gave Simon his first taste of deadlines and edits.  He was then offered the ongoing position to colour G.I.Joe: Snake Eyes, which continues to this day.