As a child I had a poster on my wall of Australia's venomous creatures, with illustrations of snakes' spiders' jellyfish, cool stuff etc…
It was my favourite poster for many years. By the age of 11 I already knew I was going to be an artist but also wanted to work with snakes and sharks. I used to keep all sorts of spiders, bugs, lizards and marine critters as pets.
I lived next to the beach and had to walk through a swamp to get there. I would see snakes, but only watched them from a far.
1988 I found out about an interesting group, the Tasmanian herpetological society. In the early to mid 90s I was president of the Tas herp society, I was giving talks to schools about snakes and removed snakes from peoples backyards.

I became known as the local snake man.

Of course all this would show in my art….