Scott Sinclair

Early Career

Scott 'SINC' Sinclaire attended Ringling School of Art and Design in Florida, completing a degree in illustration. Whilst attending college Sinclair became actively involved with the "Golden Age" of Gainesville's punk scene in the early to mid 90s. Having played in bands and painting cover art for such bands as Hot Water Music, Less than Jake, Radon and Spoke just to name a few. Many of which would continue to commission work from him.

Sinclair's artworks became synonymous with one particular Gainesville band; Hot Water Music. Having designed the band's logo in two different incarnations, he also painted more than 11 different album covers from the band's 19 year long history. But due to existing commitments (which included work on Bioshock Infinite) he was unable to paint the cover for the bands 2012 release 'Exister'.

"My impetus for moving North East was to set up a studio within close proximity to the headquarters of major publications. I would be lying if I said the decision wasn’t partially driven by my love for NYC hardcore, the scene in New Haven, and late nights at the Rat in Beantown. Editorial paid the bills, but meeting bands and painting cover art kept me living.”

Later moving to Boston where he would began his lengthy and successful career as a commercial artist and illustrator; from pictorials for newspapers, magazines and everything in-between; from Playboy to the New York Times. He began to see the changed towards new media tools, becoming a graphic and web designer, which would later allow him to explore opportunities in video game design.

"This is going to sound really lame, but I remember leaving the theater after seeing The 5th Element, and thinking ‘I need to figure out how to make taxi cabs like those!’ Several of my college buddies had already broken into the games industry as 3d artists, and helped me get my foot in the door."

Game Industry

His career in the video game industry began at Looking Glass Studios, a developer that included many talented people that would later form Irrational Games; a company which Sinclair would reunite with several times in his career.

Ken Levine, founder of Irrational Games and creative director of Bioshock, described Sinclair's role on Bioshock as crucial in creating the "Bioshock style" and the setting of Rapture.

"The statue of Atlas in the Kashmir. It’s the first thing he built after coming back to Irrational after a stint on Guitar Hero, and it sort of set the tone. Oh, yeah – he art directed everything else. Without Scott, there is no BioShock style." - Ken Levine, Bioshock: Breaking the Mold, 2007.

Sinclair had also been a conceptual artist and illustrator at Harmonix Music Systems, where he worked on the first Guitar Hero and art design on The Beatles: Rock Band.

In August 2012, Sinclair would once again returned to Irrational Games a second time as Art Director / Principle Artist for Bioshock Infinite, after the abrupt departure of the previous art director and Irrational Games veteran artist Nate Wells.

Signature Art Style

Most of Sinclair's visual style in a lack of a better description can be vaguely defined as neo-cubist or neo-surrealist or a combination of the two. Though his style has changed somewhat over the years from the different mediums, his signature portraits of human figures are always distinguishable as his own style. Often theatric and exaggerated mostly include features, (though not always) 'disfigured', disembodied misshapen "humans" sometimes without eyes.

Sinclair signs his works with his alias: "SINC", most commonly all uppercase and can be boldly spotted on his artworks.

Miscellaneous Facts

• According to Chris Remo, Sinclair is an "Amateur BBQ eater".
• Had avidly collected McFarlane Toys, before closeting them away out of shame on his family farm. They were all destroyed by rain and bat guano.
• His early business cards read "Illustrashawn"
• He apologises the design he did for the Looking Glass Studios Logo.
• His work for Bioshock has been featured in The Art of Video Games exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
• Sold his comic book collection to buy Herzog Zwei.