I know it's been a while. I've been up to my ears in work and life but it's all looking much more calm nowadays so I'm trying to get back here and post.
Graveyard of Empires #1 came out and as far as I can tell it was a success. Thanks to all who bought a copy or told there friends. We're getting issue 2 ready for print and it promises to be much more crazy. I've posted a mash-up (ala
Dan Panosian) so you can see a glimpse of what's to come.
I've been a regular visitor to
Leif's blog about illustration for quite a while now and it always impresses me how much he puts into each post. His recent
post (as of this moment) is about "bad drawing". I'm a firm believer in not just drawing what you see but trying to add (or in alot of ways subtract) to what's there. The art that always excites me is the stuff that almost shouldn't be good but ends up being genius. It's so much harder to simplify than to complicate. Alex Toth might be the best and most used example of what constitutes simple, solid, good drawing. He expertise in just drawing what's needed has influenced a multitude of artists after him. But if you want artists of today doing great work in nonconventional and out of the box of realism I can name a bunch. Mike Mignola might be the best example of someone that is as crude as anything and still manages to make his art beautiful. In the past I've heard people say that they love his earlier stuff more and I couldn't disagree more. His evolution into his own entity in the art world is something we should all strive for. His latest (and best in my opinion) work is so simple and deliberate that I sometimes sit back and marvel that it still works. It takes a masters eye to be able to make something so simple stand up to the most detailed art pieces. Tony Salmons is another underrated and often overlooked genius of our time. When you break his work down it really shouldn't work. His anatomy is all over the place, his backgrounds aren't always in perspective and his lighting is often super stylized. But underneath that is a energy and a life that is undeniable. There's so much movement and power in his work that you could never achieve if he cared where Batman's kneecaps should be. Last but certainly not least is Jorge Zaffino. Maybe the most classical in structure and drawing of the artists I've =mentioned but he destroys all that with this inking. The power that Salmons brings to his compositions and anatomy Zaffino puts in his brushwork. It's almost like he's so excited to draw each page that he rushes into it and his hand zooms from one panel to the next. Of course that's what it looks like but it's far from what it is. trust I've tried to be as carefree as he was and it's miuch much harder than it looks. I actually own the page I posted here and it sits right above my drawing table. I think I probably habitually glance at it before every page. A reminder that real art isn't about where everything goes or how accurate I can be but about the life behind each line and the effect it has on the viewer.
That's all for now. I usually don't spout off on rants but I thought I'd give it a shot. More soon... promise.
P.
