Share Your Inspiration!

[James]

An experimental thread where you can share some of the artwork that inspires your own in the hope it could inspire others!

The only request I make is you "hotlink" images via photobucket or the ilk - simply because we don't want post padding with simple links saying "I think this guys art ROCKS!".

For instance - when it comes to hands - who do you admire? Or backgrounds?

Or robots?

Someone who was a massive inspiration for me when it comes to posture and technology is Simon Bisley. British artist responsible for Slaine, Judgement on Gotham and a lot of Lobo.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/casarbi/hammer.jpg

Dirty inks, excessive posturing and unrealistic environments made you want to look. I love this style and while my work isn't very Bisley, there are certain perameters that I think I follow in his work.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/casarbi/sjoe3.jpg

Funny, finding this one on the net made me realise how often this pose has popped up in my work. Totally subconscious, but this frame has been burned into my brain since I was around 11 years old.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/casarbi/sjoe2.jpg

And this one. Just the posture, the scifi robot is soo human, I'd never seen anyone intergrate human muscles onto robots so organically. The BFG is also an inspiration.

Anyone else want to share some inspiration?

[King_of_doom]

Hope i'm doing right. I got many inspirations to do my Megas XLR drawings but there's only 3 people i admired the most

http://img67.imageshack.us/img67/8328/megas4354rh.th.jpg (http://img67.imageshack.us/my.php?image=megas4354rh.jpg)
His name is Dadward and i believe he's one of the coolest artist i ever seen. He draw many girls and some are of Kiva. This one is the decent one of his works. Like the way he does the poses on his characters and also the coloring it's spectacular.

http://img365.imageshack.us/img365/3830/campbell2169bo.th.jpg (http://img365.imageshack.us/my.php?image=campbell2169bo.jpg)
The awesome J. Scott Campbell. I just love how i he draws mostly on woman. The way he does the anatomy on his characters is amazing.

http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/1001/1nickb26aa.th.jpg (http://img160.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1nickb26aa.jpg)
And last but not least Nick Bradshaw. He started by drawing the comics of Army of Darkness and since then he started to draw on many comic books. I like the way he draws the character's facial expressions also how he does dinamic poses as well.

[James]

That's PRECISELY what I was hoping to inspire! Lovely choices of images too. Campbell and Bradshaw really get great female expressions!

[Agent S7]

...but these two artists inspire me when I do draw.

JHONEN VASQUEZ

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Stage/3677/jhonen01.JPG

See the rough, shakey lines and the pure black-on-white inking style? It gives the art a gritty feel that, for me, is unmatched by any other artist. Although I don't draw quite like him, I wish I could!

http://media.g4tv.com/images/imagedb2/312/31280_L.jpg

See teh spooky shadowing? The dirty lines? They get a spooky feel across that is unmatched but by my other favorite artist!

http://members.tripod.com/~carltoon/horror/vasquez-squee.jpg

The style is so very frantic and crazy that it certainly suits Jhonen's equally frantic and crazy comics. Crazy, huh? On a side note, Jhonen is also the creator and character designer of INVADER ZIM, but he didn't actually animate it, so I post no screenshots of the show.

EDVARD MUNCH

I don't know what attracts me so much to this classical artist. His very expressionist and gothic style probably factors in. Take a look:

THE SICK CHILD
http://www.edvard-munch.com/Paintings/death/sickChild_3.jpg

A tragic painting. The adult appears more upset than the child is, blissfully unaware of what could be her own death. The pastels paint the emotions of misery and fear along with childhood innocence. Brilliant.

The Scream
http://www.edvard-munch.com/Paintings/anxiety/scream_3.jpg

This painting is so famous that it has been stolen and probably now hangs in a crimelord's den. The twisted strokes and wild colors show the pain that the figure or artist is enduring psychologically.

I think I'll add Bleedman to the list soon, but I have other things to do right now. Ciaio!

~s7

[James]

ooo, some classical artists. Even better. It's nice to see such a contrast of artistic inspiration. Two very different visualists from very different periods. I'd love to see some other favourites from contemporary and classical eras. I may post a couple later.

A good way to widen our artistic backgrounds. The Sick Child is an awesome painting. A lovely choice.

[Tanooki]

"bart vs the space mutants"
http://www.theoldcomputer.com/Libarary's/Pictures/NESGameCovers/B/Bart%20vs%20the%20Space%20Mutants.jpg

didn't really start drawing until i played this game as a kid. the simpsons was one of my family's favorite tv shows and bart simpson was a favorite character of mine. i took the video game box cover, sat down at the kitchen table, and tried to mimic this picture as best as i could. i think i over did it though because later my friends would ask me "neil, why does everything you draw look like it's from the simpsons?"

legend of zelda series
http://www.altpop.com/stc/pics-large/lozwwost.jpg

i'm a pretty big "legend of zelda" fanboy, as if you all needed to be told that :p and thus drawing link, zelda, and others was a pretty big thrill for me. wind waker has to be my absolute favorite to draw, though, and as such, many of the elements found in wind waker's style can be found in my various pieces today!

[Frozen]

The late, great mike Parobeck. I wept when he died.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k266/Mr_Lazell/55d428cf.jpg

Looks simple enough doesn't it? It's not. It's very, very hard to do what Mike did, and to do it that well. And when he was doing it, we were drowning in the kind of dross that Rob Liefeld et al at Image were churning out like bad wind. Mike was such a breath of fresh air, and showed me that you really could plough your own furrow and not have to distort your style to match the new "hot mood" in comics.

God bless, Mike.

[Mek]

Alessandro Barbucci, a FANTASTIC Itallian artist who's done some incredible stuff, including a good chunk of W.I.T.C.H. as well. He draws some of the prettiest women (even if they are a little over endowed) and the cutest guys. ^^

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v283/mekairinek/th_skydoll_exlibris010.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v283/mekairinek/skydoll_exlibris010.jpg)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v283/mekairinek/th_skydoll_artworks005.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v283/mekairinek/skydoll_artworks005.jpg)

I honestly wish I could understand -or know- what 'Sky Doll' is about... it looks GORGEOUS.

Greg Titus. He's a newbie, ya' might not have heard about him. He did the interior art for 'Annihilation: Super Skrull'. (Which should still be on comic stands as of this posting)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v283/mekairinek/Wahey/th_ANNSKRL004013_col.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v283/mekairinek/Wahey/ANNSKRL004013_col.jpg)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v283/mekairinek/Wahey/th_ANNSKRL004007_col.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v283/mekairinek/Wahey/ANNSKRL004007_col.jpg)

His art is dynamic. The anime-ishness of it isn't for everyone -especially the pouty lips and... rather large posteriors- some of his characters have, but I must say it's some of the best art in the whole 'Annihilation' series next to the stuff Andrea Di Vito is doing for the main series itself.

I have more, but I'm battling a cold at the moment, so my attention span is very limited. D=

[RD!]

I think some of these will be hard to follow I guess as I have no scanner and thus unable to show you guys what I do with a pen and colored pencils (my preferred media!). However I am a pretty terrible artist overall, like poses and hands and different perspectives? Har.

http://superloo.us/robots/ivegotstarsinmyeyes.gif
Sam Brown's been doing Explodingdog forever and I love it. It's the kind of website I forget about and when I remember it there's always near a hundred things for me to look at. I think he's the best example in my mind of not being completely indulgent abstract art while at the same time not being objectively good art while at the same time being uh... ...good work. He's pretty much my inspiration entirely for the work I do online. It's sketchy and kind of sloppy but I try my best to add some humor to it.

http://textfrown.net/top.png
Everyone who has been on the internet and near any type of anime community has been around this style. I really enjoy cartoony pictures even though the type I do is more associated with kids/girls. I guess... the whole... CLAMP thing and... yeah I'm a pretty generic internet artist. Except I'm neither gay or a female so... *shrug*

Some day I'll scan some of my sketches. =[

[James]

Looks simple enough doesn't it? It's not. It's very, very hard to do what Mike did, and to do it that well. And when he was doing it, we were drowning in the kind of dross that Rob Liefeld et al at Image were churning out like bad wind. Mike was such a breath of fresh air, and showed me that you really could plough your own furrow and not have to distort your style to match the new "hot mood" in comics.

God bless, Mike.

It's funny how art - especially comic art - goes in trends. I know I speak highly of bisley, but he wrought some DREADFUL clones onto the field. British art was suffocated by some terribly average arists who could use an airbrush and do silly faces in their dark artwork, but lacked the skill of proportions and.. identity.

I know what you mean about Liefield. He popped up in a period of extreme disproportion and I've never been overly keen on some of his finishes (and tiny feet). That was another saturate period - in fact, it was the same time Bisley clones saturated the UK, Liefield and co was doing the same to Marvel in the US. Even Jim Lee can't stand too far away from Liefield as he was brought in around the same time with similar... male and female disproportion. It's a shame as it's not that a style is ALL bad. Silvestri, Lee, MacFarlane (to some extend) were all running on similar parallels too and I love Marc and Jim's work in particular; the former has energy, the latter has such epical magnificance, but too many simply does saturate.. and that's before we look at the Lee clones than inspired the next wave, or the Manga invasion that followed after that.

So yes, it's the people that exist in between these style fads that really stand out. They and those who start the fads to begin with. Both groups are people who don't follow trends and Mike is a great example of someone who did just that. Small oasis' in a desert of clones. :)

Great replies. It's cool to see the inspiration and in most cases so far you can SEE that inspiration in the members work (if you hang around the DB long enough that is).

Love it.

[James]

A couple more... slightly more classical.

Canaletto
Italian 18th Century artist. Artist of such intricate cityscapes. If you get to see any of his work (or similar of the period) in a gallery, have a good long look. Awesome visuals.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/casarbi/canaletto_ducal.jpg


Alex Raymond
A more contemporary fellow, responsible for the classic Flash Gordon strips. Look at that brush and figure work. The characters have such weight and the line such grace, you can't help but be inspired!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/casarbi/flash7.jpg

[Outlander00]

WELL! Time to name a few of mine...

http://www.zmgzeg.sulinet.hu/london/Parizs/xx/Van%20Gogh@Csillagos%20ej%20a%20Rhone-on.JPG
First we will explore the more traditional ones... starting with the more significant one, Vincent Van Gogh. I was influenced and inspired by his drafting style, which is more illustrative in nature.

http://home.hccnet.nl/r.peterse/r.peterse/dore.jpg
Second would be both Gustav Dore and, seperately, German Expressionist Woodcut artists of the 1800's. seeing the imagery and overall techniques of these two different schools and styles of printing inspired me and eventually influenced my style to using very contrasty shapes and designs with fine intricencies.

http://www.joshstaiger.org/images/scdamprint1.jpg
The thrid artist that inspired me and my current style to where it is today is Frank Miller. Ive recently went back to explore the style further, and mix it with what I learned and what inspires me, including the last one...


http://www.altvampyres.net/vhd/3a.jpg
Yoshitaka Amnos energetic and delicate lines inspired me to try to pull together the style being rather contrasty with preserve some line work that is heavy with soft that is delicate, while keeping the energy of the drawing in tact. :)