A Leamington videogame designer has embarked on a new career as an artist and is to exhibit at the forthcoming Artmarkets event in Warwick this weekend.

Andrew Pallister has worked as a graphic artist in the videogame industry since 1996, working at Leamington-based Code-masters on the Colin McRae Rally titles, moving last year to FreeStyleGames in Warwick.

As an artist Andrew is inspired by buildings and urban landscapes and originally based his work on photography, progressing to incorporate computer graphics.

"My art has grown out of what I do for a living," he said. "I had been using the software to design videog-ames so knew its potential and realised what could be achieved if I combined my photography and computer design skills."

Andrew loads his photo-graphs onto the computer then creates pieces by redrawing the image from scratch using Adobe Illustrator.

"It's not a simple, five minute task," he added. "This process lasts hours but the technique means I can focus on the level of detail from nearly photo-graphic to abstract and control how stylised the image becomes."

Before moving to Warwickshire, Andrew grew up in rural Lincolnshire, studying product design at Lincolnshire College of Art and Design, followed by design communication at Northumberland College of Art and Technology.

His early skills were developed through water-colour paintings, pen and ink drawings and photography. His work is influenced by artists, designers and photographers, including Edward Hopper, The Designers Republic, Buro Destruct, Martin Parr and Elliot Erwitt.

* Andrew is exhibiting and selling his work at Artmarkets on Sunday between 10am and 4pm at Warwick Racecourse.