An illustration graduate from the University of Lincoln is now selling his artwork across the world after his latest creation became a global Internet hit.

Scott Mitchell, who graduated from the BA (Hons) Illustration programme in 2010, has seen his acrylic painting inspired by the award-winning television series Breaking Bad become an online sensation. Scott found that his niche was in painting people, and particularly enjoys creating portraits of celebrities and characters.

He decided to paint a scene from the AMC drama Breaking Bad featuring characters Walter White  (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), but didn’t expect it to become such an instant hit. Within an hour of uploading it to social news website Reddit.com, the painting had become the highest ranked link on the website, and had more than 1,600 comments the following morning, as well as another 300 comments on imgur.com

The picture triggered so much traffic to Scott’s website that the server went down overnight, and the picture had to be uploaded again twice the following day!

Since the painting went viral, he has received around 150 messages requesting prints. He has since set up an account with the online art website Society6, which enables him to manage demand more easily.

He has also featured on various blogs across the internet, including digitalspy.co.uk.

Scott is currently on the Enterprise Inc. scheme at the University of Lincoln which has helped him to build an online presence and identify the best places to market his paintings.

He says: “The internet has been crucial in selling my work, in particular to other countries. Something I want for the future is to have a painting on every continent, although maybe I’ll have to give a couple away for free to achieve that!”

He now hopes to move back to Lincoln, where his passion for art began, and continue to build his online following.