Ep. 74: Animator MARK BEHM on Day Jobs and Nightwork

I first started trading emails with Mark Behm (pronounced like "beam") after seeing his artbook, Nightwork, advertised on the Brandstudio Press website. The excerpts from it were amazing, so I started looking around for an official site on the artist. Lo and behold, there was one—and a blog!

I visited a few times and eventually sent a note, which is how Mark and I became Internet-acquainted. The funny thing was, he mentioned in one of our exchanges that he was already a listener to SiDEBAR, and really enjoyed the show. Needless to say, I was thrown—that doesn't happen often! Sitting in a basement, speaking into a microphone to somebody on the telephone...well. After a while, you start feeling like you're the only one who knows you're doing it!

Anyway, back to our guest. As I said earlier, Mark's an amazing artist and versatile as all get out. His blog is rife with gorgeous painted images, character designs, 3D stuff and some kick-ass life drawing studies. He feels like he's interested in a few too many things, but Dwight and I, of course, love the variety! You get to see something different every time you drop by his site.

Behm just recently left his gig at Dreamworks and made the switch to Valve, a video game company out of Washington state. But if you're curious about his filmwork past, he was a part of the creative teams that brought you Madagascar 2, Shrek the Third, Robots and The Ant Bully. In the interview, he pulls back the curtain on Mad 2 and gives us a little peek into the challenges of working on a huge, animation project.

We also talk a good bit about his dad who was an artist as well, growing up loving Star Wars, DrawerGeeks! and how you've got to make time to do your own stuff—even if it's at night.

Check Mark out at his sketchblog and pick up a copy of Nightwork too!