Sketch Kustom: Mark Bernard's Artistic Odyssey

Most artists pick a lane early and spend a career defending it. One medium, one signature, one safe thing to be known for. Range gets called unfocused.

Mark Bernard went the other way.

Known as Sketch Kustom, the Melbourne artist has spent decades refusing to sit still in one medium — illustration, design, digital, film, and sculpture next. The through-line isn't a style. It's a person who never stopped being the kid a kindergarten teacher told, back in 1987, that he could draw.

Comic-book logic

His early influences were Kevin Eastman and Todd McFarlane — the minds behind the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Spawn. Not just a drawing style. A way of thinking: bold lines, characters, worlds you could step inside. Storytelling first, decoration never.

The geek and the pen

Mark is a self-described computer geek, and he's never treated tech as a threat to the craft. He built games on a graphics calculator in high school. He folds digital tools into his short films. The screen is just another surface to draw on.

Heritage he doesn't file off

His work carries where he's from — Indian and Australian, his father's Biryani in the same breath as his art. Behind the range is a foundation most profiles skip: sacrifices from his wife Shelley, backing from his parents. Delivering his daughter Millie himself became fuel, not just a memory.

The reach

Persistence and a DM did what a manager usually does. His work reached Snoop Dogg and Bizzy Bone — album covers, merch, real collaborations built off nerve. In 2022 he took the win at the Very Short Film Festival, his kids in the room. His short film 'HOME.' is an Official Selection at the Setting Sun International Film Festival.

Sculpture is next. Another dimension, literally — not because the portfolio needs one more thing, but because standing still was never the plan. That teacher in 1987 didn't tell him to be a painter, or a designer, or a filmmaker. She told him he could make things.

He's still proving her right.

Find Sketch Kustom: @sketchnkustom

Creative Spotlight is an ongoing series on the Henry Skillz Transmission Log.