We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tannen Fair a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tannen, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

For sure sooner, for as long as I can remember I’ve always been drawing , and I would always draw for my own reasons and never even considered taking it anywhere beyond a hobby. People always would tell me to but I’d always brush it off like “Yeah I could never do anything with this.” I put my focus in places and work that I shouldn’t have been instead of what was right in front of me the whole time.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name’s Tannen and I create visual art under the name “Moribund” or “Moribund Art” I’m 26 (at the time of this interview) and hail from the cornfield ridden lands of Indiana Since I was a kid I’ve always been drawing. I had (and still have) a fascination with Monsters and Kaiju and would spend a lot of time trying to draw made up monsters for the movies I would watch as a kid. I guess throughout the years I’ve always kept on with it in my free time. I would spend most of my days in school just drawing concepts for video game ideas I had and for the music I liked, I still have most of the sketch books to this day.
For many years it was nothing more than a hobby/release for me until one day Bands in/and outside of my local scene took notice and started asking me to make art for them. I never thought my art was good enough for any of that (and still fight myself thinking it isn’t)
I can remember the exact day everything changed for me when I was approached by one of my favorite bands for my art. Ever since that and thanks to some very supportive people in my life I am able to do something I love that fulfills me as more than just a hobby.

I mainly do artwork for bands in the Death Metal genre, but I do just about anything , I’ve even done work for pop bands. I try to be diverse with what I make , I stress a lot about just making the same sort of pieces and boxing myself into just one style/audience. I make anything from simple graphics, to albums covers , logos, show flyers, merch art, I’ve even lately been making my own merch for my brand.
I feel I owe a lot of my influences to horror games, Kaiju/Monster movies, RPG games, Dark Fantasy and military. those sorts of projects are my favorites to make. I feel like I focus a ton on attention to detail , for example another hobby of mine is shooting and firearms and their history interest me , so whenever I’m drawing something that involves firearms I end up stressing making sure the rivets/bolts/releases are visible and in the correct spots. This goes for everything I make , I get told my work is very detailed. Same goes for anatomy , I try to make sure everything looks and works as it should (muscles in correct spots , limbs acting the way they should)
I tend to draw with a lot of improvisation , I feel like my best work is with no planning and just getting straight to the paper, I may use pencil just to get a rough idea for proportions or to show a client , but the rest is as it comes off of my brain.

As for how I conduct my work , I prioritize getting work to my clients quickly with the most quality possible, I try to give updates as much as possible and if there’s a complication with time I make sure to let them know. I try to treat my clients how I would want to be treated , which personally I like being in the know of what’s going on when I request work. I also put my full attention towards the project , to me this isn’t just money on the table, my art is a part of me and very important to me so when I create I’m putting myself into the piece. It means the world to me when a piece is finished and the client loves the piece and we’ve managed to combine our visions for something great. I love projects that are challenging to me, things outside of my usual portfolio , so I welcome projects that are outside of my usual work.

Creating art is something I truly love and I wish I focused on sooner, I’ve always believed in the mindset of working hard for what you want, For me I feel deep down my art is what I should be pursuing instead of working myself away for a company or someone else, I’ve spent many years working my heart out at jobs that at the end of the day couldn’t care less for people that are worried about themselves. With my art I not only am doing something I love but I’m providing people with art that they enjoy , and that means the world to me.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me it’s a few things , I love hearing/seeing the reactions people get when I show them finished work. It makes me happy to see that someone is stoked on something I created for them , to know it’s impacted their life positively is warming to me. I struggle a lot with seeing the negativity around so seeing positive things like that are great.

Another is seeing the progression of everything over time and growth. It’s crazy for me to go to a music show and see people walking around with artwork on their shirts that I made. When just a year ago I was keeping all of it to myself and thinking it wasn’t good enough for anything like that. I guess it means a lot to me to see that people are enjoying something that I created.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Okay with this one I’m going to sidetrack off of the art but it ties back into my mindset with this journey. To give a bit of backstory I grew up in a household that should have been dooming (and was to most of my family) , tons of drug abuse and poverty around me. It was an extremely depressing environment and because of that I was very unhealthy. I remember saying at a point “Screw this” and started taking my physical and mental health very seriously and vowing to never let myself be what I once was and to only move forward no matter the cost. I would be damned if I would allow myself to become like those around me or be the shell of a person I used to be. That’s carried over heavily to my mindset with my art. Once it started taking off I’ve had to make sacrifices and do things that are very risky and it’s always been worth it. I feel and believe very heavily if you want something bad enough you can get it if you put your mind towards it. I’ve had several ups and downs with the art but I refuse to let the downs keep me from moving forward. This previous year has been ridden with death around me and it’s been very defeating and difficult along with juggling a full time job and a long distance relationship , many times that feeling of giving up on it appears but you just have to say no and keep pushing forward.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @moribund_art
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoribundArtwork