When you're presented with illustrative work that is outside of your comfort zone and very different from what you've previously created, where do you start?

I love a challenge, though often I end up over-challenging myself. I try to pick one big project a year that I'm going to totally just throw myself off a cliff with. Either something that challenges my command of a medium or trying a new style or type of art. For example, one year that project was the thick paints and stylization in Flipships, another year it was the crazy colors and line art in Dinosaur Island. Those styles I'd never really tried before. I'm also a sucker for weird themes and new concepts.

I have a running 10-item list of themes, or styles or kernels of ideas that I want to try at some point: a bucket list of 'style-cliffs,' if I may.

Tantamount with any project, in or out of my comfort zone, is doing good research. Looking at what's been done before for that particular theme, or making sure there are facts in the factual part of a project. I feel out of my depth all the time, and oftentimes I am. Really being a freelance artist means being in your own head all the time, and a polite nudge or two from the art director or graphic designer is sometimes just the ticket to a solid piece of art.