A. Artistic Influences – Most of my artistic influences are comic book artists. I love comics and read a lot of them. There are a lot of comic artists I admire but two that really stand out to me due to their completely stand alone styles. Alex Ross and his photorealism and Frank Miller and his Sin City comics. In what I refer to as the fine art world there are artists I like but only one artists I feel I was really inspired by, that being Caravaggio.
1. Alex Ross – The first artistic influence on my list is Alex Ross. He is a comic book artist whose style is unlike most. He draws his comics in a photorealistic style. Most drawings he does are worked from photographs. The book Mythology The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross documents a plethora of his work and his process.
Ross’ way of working intrigues me because I find a lot of my better drawings are done from photographs. I have done self-portraits from photos and while looking at a mirror and the ones from photos look much better. I feel it is easier to get correct proportions when you have something right next to you to compare it to instead of having to eyeball it from something across the room.
Ross takes his own photos of models in super hero costumes and works directly from them to get the pose he is looking for. From there he exaggerates and makes these ordinary people into super heroes. Replacing the models faces with the faces of today’s heroes, exaggerating their muscles, and adding in all the other things to make an ordinary photo into an extraordinary panel for a comic or a stand-alone piece. I feel like I can’t explain his work well enough in a paper and that to really see how amazing Ross’ work is you have to see his process in the Mythology book.
2. Frank Miller – Frank Miller is not only influential to me because of his comic book art, but also because he writes the stories for most of his work. This is inspiring to me to know that there are people to can work at more than one thing and be successful. Many people out there work their asses off to be good enough at one thing to be called successful and make a living off what they do, but Frank Miller is one example that shows you don’t have to settle for just one. He writes, he draws, he directs, he produces, and probably more.
Still his graphic style remains the most intriguing to me. He has had a lot of different styles throughout the years from his work on Daredevil to the popular The Dark Knight Returns and Sin City and 300. Sin City in particular is the most intriguing to me. The style of drawing paired with the black and white pages with just a splash of color here and there makes the story seem even darker.
I feel like sometimes my work is all on the same linear path and I’m stuck in this box that I can’t escape. Miller has no box. The style of Sin City is unlike his work on Daredevil. 300 is nothing like The Dark Knight Returns. I want to try and develop some unique styles of my own that are unlike my previous work.
3. Caravaggio – My junior year of college I took Baroque art history and the one artist I was really taken aback by was Caravaggio. The contrast alone was what drew me to him. His painting of David with Goliath’s head reminded me of something I’d see in a comic book. It’s like one of the original full-page spreads for a comic book. I could look at that painting for hours I feel and not get sick of it. The blacks in his paintings really help emphasize the grim nature of a lot of his paintings.
In my first drawing for the course one of the reasons I chose to have so much black in my drawing was Caravaggio. I thought of how much I enjoyed the way the blacks emphasized the subject matter of his paintings and I tried to use it in my drawing to emphasize my subject. I liked the way my drawing turned out and felt I did a good job of using the black to draw the viewer into the subject.
B. Outside Influences – Outside the art world I have a lot of interests, but I think there are three things that both influenced me to become an artist and inspire me as an artist. Movies, video games, and the web comic Penny-Arcade. All three of these things are usually a part of my daily life and I get ideas from them all the time.
1. Movies – I love movies. I watch movies all the time. I’ll watch pretty much anything and probably like it. I am not picky at all; there is rarely a movie that I hate. When I was younger I thought it would be fun to work on movies. At first I wanted to be an actor, then I thought doing stunts and special effects. I thought of doing animation for studios like Pixar or Dreamworks. Eventually I thought of set design or the promotional material like posters and advertisements. Basically anything creative you can do for a movie I thought of doing it.
I have always been fascinated with the process of how movies are made and everything that goes into getting the final product. When I go out and buy a movie I make sure to get the DVD with all the bonus features so I can see all the behind the scenes footage, see the storyboards, set design, cast and crew interviews all of it. I watch all of them and they always inspire me to work harder at everything I do so that maybe one day I can do something for a movie. Whether it’s designing a poster, creating a character’s costume, or possibly directing someday I think working on a movie would be a great job or rather a great experience.
2. Video Games – I have been playing video games for as long as I can remember. A lot goes into making a video game. There is so much concept art that is done for video games. And I have seen a lot of concept art for the games I have played. They go through countless ideas for every aspect of the game. From character design to level design, and all the little details in between. I have a couple of art books from games I’ve played and I am blown away by all the ideas that never make it to the games but that doesn’t mean they aren’t just as fantastic as the ideas that got implemented.
I wanted to make video games for the longest time. I play video games all the time what better job is there than to make them. It would be like never working a day in my life. I would get to work on games and be creative at the same time. I’ve seen videos of what goes on inside game studios and it seems like the kind of environment I would love to work in. The people seem like people I would get a long with and would want to hang out with in my free time. So I guess when it comes down to it video games are an influence to me because they offer a career that I would love to have.
3. Penny-Arcade – Penny-Arcade is a web comic I’ve been reading for years. It’s a web comic that talks about many of the things I’m interested in including video games and movies. The style of it alone is a style I like and have tried to replicate. It was started by two guys over ten years ago and was meant to be something fun they did on the side. Now they have a huge following. They have books of their comics, a charity organization for children, a scholarship program, and two entertainment expos one on each coast.
Penny-Arcade is an example of how something small and just for fun can grow into something huge. It is an inspiration to me to see how these two ordinary guys grew something so small into something so great. It is kind of like a Cinderella story of two geeks like me. I’d love to be able to do half as well as these guys have in creating something that brings so much joy to so many people and helps out those in need.
C. Personal Influences – Personal influences were the easiest to come up with mainly because I know exactly what three things influence me the most personally. My parents, Legos, and forum signatures. These three things are what, in my personal life, set me on the path to becoming an artist before I even knew I wanted to be one. I don’t think anything is more influential to me than where I got my start as an artist.
1. Parents – It may sound cliché, but the first personal influence I have is my parents. I think everyone’s parents told them they could do anything when they grow up and mine are no exception to that rule. It’s funny because nether of my parents have any artistic talent at all. We are all at a loss as to where I got my artistic talent, and sometimes I feel like a black sheep because of it. But most times I just feel lucky to have something different that is only mine.
The real reason my parents are an influence though comes from something they did when I was younger. When I was a kid my parents didn’t buy me coloring books instead they bought me sketchbooks and told me I shouldn’t be forced to color in the lines. They told me everything I need was in my mind and that I didn’t need anything but a blank piece of paper and a crayon. I think that was what first put me on the path to becoming an artist and I think had I had coloring books I would have chosen a different path.
2. Legos – Legos were my favorite toy as a kid. I freaking loved Legos. Hell I still love Legos. What better toy was there for a kid with an active imagination? Answer: there isn’t one. The only limit to what you can make with Legos is the limit you put on your imagination. I had tons of Legos. Like giant buckets full of them. I could sit down and play with Legos for hours on end making all sorts of different things. They really helped develop a great imagination. I’d build something, look at it and think of something to change or add and then do it all over again. I made cars, castles, ships, planes, robots, anything and everything. There were so many different pieces to use and to choose from to make all sorts of new things. I loved getting new sets because they gave me new pieces for my own ideas. The hours I spent playing with Legos definitely helped me to develop a great imagination and helped me along the path to becoming an artist.
3. Forum Signatures – I remember in high school I played a game that had and small community website with its own forum. This was the first time I ever really used a forum and it was the first time I saw what is called a signature. For those who don’t know a signature on a forum is a bit of text or a small image that appears after each of your posts on a forum.
This forum had a kind of sub community of people who designed these signature images. I was intrigued by how these were made and it was when I first learned about photoshop. I got a cracked version of photoshop and started to experiment and teach myself how to use the program. I got decent enough to make some images that weren’t half bad considering the amount of experience I had. This was my first foray into graphic design. In high school I took the two graphic design courses we had there as well as two photography courses, two drawing courses, and an animation course. This is what set me on my formal training to becoming an artist. If it hadn’t been for that game and that community of people creating those signatures I don’t know where I would be now. Maybe I still would have found my way to design, but I know that it is what originally got me into graphic design.
