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Real pirates were better than in movies, more daring and terrifying and cunning than any screenwriter could imagine. They operated during the Golden Age of Piracy, from 1650 to 1720.

I have been interested in pirates since I was about 8 years old. The idea of people deciding, sometimes at a moment's notice, to throw over the rules and restrictions of society - it was just irresistible.

I was born in 1935, and as far back as I can remember, I was sketching designs. My first subject was an aircraft, which I imagined myself piloting.

I know a lot of grime artists started off on pirate radio, but I missed that era; I was way too young.

One thing I longed to do was to design a complete look, from head to toe, so I started a make-up line in 1966.

My earliest drawing is a supposed Carracci. It wasn't very expensive, I guess, because they don't know if it's a real Carracci. But it has all these seals on it of people who've owned it, and one of the great portrait painters of England, Reynolds, had owned it, so that's the earliest.

When I was about 5 I think, I desperately wanted to be a pirate and have the hat and everything.

It was the era of Tab Hunter and Rock Hudson; they all had a certain look.

Open a magazine from the 1930s and '40s and look at the illustrations in it. There's nobody alive that could touch the way they could draw back then.