Art Blog - Drawing On the Side

In the field of art I work on the most_comic book art_there are numerous artists I look up to and see as a bit of inspiration to help me go on as I work on a certain piece.

Whenever I see the artwork of these individuals, it either takes me back to when I was a child reading comic books for the first time or it just simply mesmerizes me, putting me in a zone as I view their works.

You'd be surprised to know that some of them aren't just simply pencilers or inkers of the trade, but go further with painting and even create a lucrative business with their established name.

So without further ado, let me list the artists I look up to.

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The artist that I think of when reminiscing about the bronze age of comic books (the years from 1970 to 1980) is, the one and only, John Romita Sr.

John Romita Sr. drew a lot of the Marvel Comics titles, especially Spider-Man. The style of his artwork was very simple, yet it was original. To many comic book fans, such as myself, I could always tell what comic books he'd worked on.

Romita's comic book artwork was, and still is, the template of what a good comic book should feature. Many artists emulated him (including me) during the 70s and 80s, but no one could come close. His son, John Romita Jr., is also an artist featured in Marvel Comics titles and has done well in the field. But Romita Sr. is what Marvel Comics was all about.

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Another artist in the comic book genre of art is Todd McFarlane.

Drawing for Marvel for a number of years, he was an innovator in making comics look cool again. When he started drawing one of the Spider-Man titles, The Amazing Spider-Man, it created such a big fan base that Marvel gave him his own title, simply titled Spider-Man, to draw and write as he pleased. Being such a success, McFarlane, along with a number of other comic book artists, founded the comic book company, Image. It helped to produce his biggest character to date: Spawn.

Spawn was different because the character wasn't an alien from a different planet or an innocent human who'd acquired powers and decided to fight crime. No, Al Simmons, an assassin for a secret military operation, somehow made a deal with the devil and after being taken out by his own people, he comes back from the dead as a demon with unimaginable powers_Spawn. His motivation, at first, is to get revenge and to try and get back the life he'd once had, but along the way, he does start to fight crime.

Todd McFarlane didn't stop at comic books, however. He went on to the toy production business, which turned out to be a very lucrative move. McFarlane Toys recreates figures like sports athletes, famous movie characters, and even Elvis.

Yes, Todd McFarlane used his artwork as a ladder to move on up and go on to bigger and better things.

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Another artist, and the final one that I'll mention in this blog is one of my favorites. He primarily does work for DC Comics, but every once in a while he'll do stuff for Marvel.

The man I'm speaking of is Alex Ross.

Alex Ross is different because of a few things. The first thing you'll notice about his work is that he mainly paints his creations rather than draw. The second thing you may notice is that every one of his characters, whether it's Superman or Spider-Man, looks so realistic. I've got to admit that the artists working in comics make some pretty cool creations, making the characters incredibly muscular or unrealistically lanky, but Alex Ross stays with a real life look in his artwork.

In case you don't recognize the name, his artwork was featured in the opening credits of the Spider-Man 2 film. He painted some very life-like portraits of the stars of the film and it's very impressive.

But those three artists are the ones I look up to and mimic at times. I admire them all and especially hope to one day be as good as Alex Ross, but I doubt it. There was actually a web site dedicated to him that featured artwork he created while in grammar school. I think it was a picture of Superman and it looked pretty darned good for a kid in grade school.

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Anyway...

What artists do you all look up to?

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