Paint it White
Edge’s latest cover artist on the rituals and processes behind his 25th anniversary designs
Cover artist Dave White on the process behind the design
Videogames have been a big part of artist Dave White’s life since Space
Invaders. Though, as we noted in E317’ s My Favourite Game, he’s rarely combined his hobby with his work. Yet he didn’t have to think twice when invited to paint four covers to commemorate Edge’s 25th anniversary. In fact, Edge is tied to one of White’s happiest memories: his first professional exhibition at Connaught Brown gallery in London, where the young artist was surprised and delighted to find his work hanging next to pieces from the likes of Picasso and Hockney. “I was only 22, and I was reading Edge on the way down,” he tells us. “I think it was issue two or three, and it was all about the Neo Geo CD. In the Trocadero I played Samurai Shodown II, and then I sold my work in this show for something like £1,000. A thousand pounds for me then was like a Ferrari. So what did I do? I went out and bought a Japanese Neo Geo CD!”
That’s hardly White’s biggest splurge on fighting games, either. He has a Super
Street Fighter II X cabinet in his studio, which, as a creature of habit, he’s worked into his daily routine. “I’ve always been a very disciplined person,” he says. “I’m in here for 8 o’clock, then it takes me a couple of hours to mix all the paint I need. I’ll put my Sonos on with my playlist for the day, I’ll have a game of Street Fighter and then I’ll start painting.”
That time spent preparing is essential for his process, he says, allowing him to stay in the moment as he works. Once he starts, he doesn’t really stop, entering a kind of flow state that’s akin to the feeling you get from a favourite videogame; indeed, just as we’re about to make the comparison he immediately likens it to playing Destiny. “Or like driving a car,” he adds. “It’s almost like autopilot. When you know what you’re getting into and your brain just starts subconsciously working. I don’t even think about it. Painting for me is like a meditative thing. And I only know when a painting is coming towards the end is when my brain is like, ‘Well, why don’t you put a bit of this here, or a bit of that there’.” That, he says, is when he knows he’s done; he’ll take the painting off his easel and turn it to face the wall, keen not to overthink it, and lose the spontaneity that makes his work so distinctive.
As such, like the rest of his work, each of White’s
Edge covers was completed in a single sitting. His preferred medium is oil on canvas, but the past decade has seen him experiment more with watercolours, which he used to paint the four anniversary covers. “In a weird way, it’s almost like the polar opposite of oil,” he says. “But it’s interesting because now I’m making the oil paint move like watercolour and making watercolours – in certain places – move like oil.”
White’s use of white backgrounds gives him no place to hide: each stroke of the brush he puts down remains to the end. “There’s no room for making a mess,” he says. “But I love that.” It’s no surprise, then, to learn that he’s a big fan of Dark Souls, a game where there’s similarly little margin for error. But how best to represent the series? For a while he mulled over the idea of painting one of its bosses. “I thought about doing Sif, because I was stuck on that bastard for so long!” he laughs. “I don’t know why. It took me about two weeks. But then I thought, ‘Nah, it’s got to be Solaire.’” And so he set to work on recreating Miyazaki’s genial knight, assuming his most famous pose. If Street Fighter was an inevitable pick, meanwhile, he wanted to paint a character that wasn’t the most obvious choice. “I had to go with Guile because he’s who I play in Street Fighter and always have done,” he says.
Evidently fond of
setting himself a challenge, White suggests the Master Chief cover was the toughest of the four – especially since, in recent times, he’s turned his focus to the natural world. “He’s such an iconic figure. If you look at my animal works in particular, they’re very organic. When you’re painting something inorganic like a man-made helmet, it’s very, very different. But it was really good fun to do.” His fourth and final pick, meanwhile, warrants no further elaboration. Super Mario? “Well, obviously.”
“It’s been incredibly rewarding,” White says – and it’s clear that Edge means something more to him than the magazine that convinced him to spend the proceeds of his first big sale on expensive import hardware. “There’s something about the aesthetic of holding something: I guess it’s like vinyl records as opposed to a digital MP3,” he says. “Edge perfectly encapsulates a hobby that I love – there’s a real distinctive wit and flavour to it. So this has been a massive honour for me. There are certain projects you do in your life which are real bucket-list things. When I was asked, there wasn’t even a hesitation in my mind.”
“Edge perfectly encapsulates a hobby that I love – there’s a real distinctive wit and flavour to it”