I often think there are schools of artists (and by schools I’m talking collective schools of fish rather than people who were actually trained together) – artists who either are influenced by each other, came up contemporaries of each other or share some essential dna (or are maybe simply simpatico) Then you’ll get the occasional artist who will look like they’ve turned up out of the blue and generate a score of people influenced by them, but even they in turn will diverge and pick up different influences until they’re either nothing like that artist or so unique in who they are you can no longer tell their primary influence.
Before I start I want to make it clear, NONE of this is meant in any negative way, this is how artists make things – we draw influence and ingest it and combine it and get something out that we love (which is what Picasso means by “Great artists steal!”) also I’m probably deeply simplifying the influences here, for which I apologise.
So for example (and these are all artists I love) Frank Quitely, self admittedly is hugely influenced by the artist Dudley D Watkins (and many others, but he’s essential in that DNA)
I think Watkins clarity of story telling, exaggerated features and Claire Ligne style is still very present in Frank’s style.
Frank went on then to influence a bunch of great artists.
Bill Sienkiewicz drew early inspiration from Neal Adams and then every other artist he could swallow into his own art until what he produces is nothing like anyone else alive. Except you’ll occasionally get some Adam’s like rendering on stuff. Adams’ influenced a lot of artists, I suspect you could also draw a family tree from Adams to Alan Davis and those who were influenced by Davis.
When I was first putting pen to paper, my influences were largely Steve Dillon and Jerry Paris. To a greater or lesser extent I think both artists remain in my art, but as I got older I attempted to grab some broader influences, never all that successfully, but certainly slightly more mindfully (less demure though* this will make no sense as a joke in about a year)
Mignola, Adam Hughes, Kevin Nowlan, I took what I could from them – where I failed to grab those influences that failure is mine rather than their particular genius, and of course, the singular genius that is my pal John McCrea, whose influence is so deeply imbedded I frequently surprise myself by drawing what I can only describe as a McCrea face (First Dredd strip I ever drew, the took a small image of dredd to use in the index and when I looked I thought “Oh wow, for some reason they’ve used a John McCrea drawing in the index”)
Having not really been picking up comics for a while I’m out of the loop on what talent is out there, so I’ve decided to scour around and find artists that I would like my art to sit comfortably with – people I think plough a similar furrow (and I apologise for dragging them in to this, this is purely an exercise in my head) largely because well, it’s good to have a sense of what’s possible.
If you’re an artist, it might be a useful exercise to see what artists out there draw in a way that you can find inspiration in.
What surprises me about this list is that my initial list (Mignola, Hughes, Nowlan) are clean lines, beautiful tight line work and are generally, very controlled.
This list I’d describe, for the most part, as much more … muscular? maybe. Inky? I’m not sure. Any way… my list, in no particular order:
- Nick Derrington.
- Nick Klein
- Dan Panosian
- Riley Rossmo
- Ryan Stegman
- Danny Earls
- Kyle Holtz
- Matt Smith (aka Barbarian Lord)
- Dani
- Ryann Ottley
So instantly one common trait they share is all of them, I think, are traditional pen and paper and ink artists (and the ones that aren’t, well, they use a brush)
This may not be my artist school, but it’s one where I think I can learn a lot.
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