Artistic Influences

Over the years, numerous people have hazarded guesses at who my artistic influences are. I’ve never kept those influences a secret, but I also don’t think they really show in my art style. Now, to set the record straight, I present the definitive list.

Cheesecake: Joseph Michael Linsner, Gil Elvgrin

Digital Painter: Greg Horn

Figure Artist: Andrew Loomis, Burne Hogarth

Others: Alphonse Mucha, M.C. Escher
Painter: Norman Rockwell, Frank Frazetta

Pen & Ink Artist: Charles Dana Gibson

Water Colorist: Alex Ross, John Howe, Alan Lee

Penciler, Original Influence: John Buscema, Gil Kane

Modern Comic Influences: Al Rio, Bruce Timm, Frank Cho, Frank Miller, George Perez, Jack Kirby, Jim Lee, John Byrne, John Romita Jr., Mike Mignola, Neal Adams

If you are an artist, who are your influences? The same question may be asked of writers and their influences.

Happy Memorial Day!  Hope you are enjoying your day, and that the weather is beautiful wherever you are.

Do I get some sort of Iron Man award for never missing updates?  Keeping up with three color episodes a week is pretty grueling, but I’m oh so happy to do it.  In fact, I really enjoyed creating today’s and Wednesday’s episodes.  I listened to the Rolling Stones (Exile of Main Street, Sticky Fingers, etc.) and just really got into it.  I always feel there is a connection, on some level, between the song “Midnight Rambler” and the first Johnny Saturn.

Johnny Saturn issues 7 and 8 are at the printer, and I paid for them today—it’s getting close!  Issue 9 won’t be far behind.  We’ll be selling these online, as well as at shows and appearances this year.

Being an artist is a funny thing.  Sometimes your expectations for your work exceed your growth, and it actually feels like you are getting worse.  You aren’t, of course.  Yet, it seems so, because you want more out of it than you can currently deliver.  We are in the middle of the six week break from the art center, so I’ve been studying Andrew Loomis book “Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth.”  This book is out of print and in public domain, but I happen to have a good copy (dated 1943) that my Grandmother had.  Burne Hogarth is pushed on young artists as the be-all-and-end-all author on anatomy, but Andrew Loomis is the real source.  The essence of Loomis’ art and his influence is most obvious to me in the work of Alex Ross.

In other words, I’ve been revisiting my roots.  When I’m done studying Loomis, I fully intend to study “How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way” by Stan Lee and John Buscema again.  There are good reasons this book has been in print for three decades, and Big John Buscema is an artist who was very influential in my own work.  Shoot, I still see hints of the Buscema style in my work to this day!  His power-packed lines actually influenced how I perceive the world around me, and draw it!

I’m going to do some book reviews this week, so watch out, these should be good!

Scott.

It’s time to resurrect the long unused Art Talk. Here we go!

Today I began penciling page 1 of Johnny Saturn issue 10. As usual, I penciled the first panel, realized it wasn’t good at all, and thoroughly erased it. I always have problems beginning a new issue, or a new project! It never fails! Today was no exception.

Why do I have this difficulty? Well, I didn’t do any warm up sketching, for one. Many of the Silver Aged artists would do warm ups for up an hour before beginning their main job. John Buscema used to draw on the backs oh is original pages, and fill up stacks of typewriter paper. Gil Kane devoted an hour every morning getting into top form.

Now in my fifteenth year of actively cartooning, I have never made warm ups part of my daily routine. This year is different. In my figurative work, Benita poses for me and lets me get warmed up before I go the Indianapolis Art Center and draw live models. I want to get the most for the experience, and coming in cold doesn’t help that.

What should one draw during these warm ups? Excellent question. In earlier times, I would have limited myself to photos of dancers, athletes, or nudes. Since I go to the Art Center, I really don’t see the point in drawing from 2D photos like I used to. Lately, I have taken to copying the work of figurative master Andrew Loomis, as seen in his classic, criminally out of print book “Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth.” Let me be clear on this: Loomis was better than Burne Hogarth, who wrote those popular and useful books that are so well known among the community of comic artists. Burne was good, and I may well get around to studying his books again, but Loomis is the master.

You might wonder, why would I study the work of another artist when I’ve got photographs I could work from? Well, studying the techniques of the great masters is a tried and true tradition, is it not? Plus, trying to replicate a master’s drawing line for line gives you a bizarre insight into the mind of that master. You begin to see the world from his perspective, how he perceived his subject matter. This can be enlightening, to say the least, and perhaps even transformative to the artist.

What am I going to do in the morning? Warm up, of course.

Scott.

I haven’t had the opportunity to prattle on with my lop-sided opinions lately, so it’s time I make that right.

When I saw the solicitations for the new graphic novel, “Neil Young’s Greendale,” I was momentarily confused—was I reading about music or comics?  Well, as it turns out, both.  I haven’t seen this comic yet, but chances are I’ll buy it.  On the album “Greendale,” I consider the songs “Sun Green” and “Be The Rain” to be masterpieces, and deserving of their places among Young’s other great songs.

Lately, I’ve been in intensely studying the human head, and how to draw it better.  Here are a few observations: 1) Andrew Loomis’ books (“Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth” and “Drawing the Head and Hands”) are the standard by which every other illustrator should aspire to; and 2) I have a high opinion of Jack Hamm’s books, too, as well as lifelong admiration for “How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way” by Stan Lee and John Buscema.

Most of the rest of my art books in my library fall well short of these classics.  In fact, many of these art books dish out incorrect information!  I was stunned by some of the wildly inaccurate proportions and measurements these books push!

You know what’s wrong with most art books created today?  They are trying to sell you a genre, not drawing skills.  You get all this “How to Draw Zombies” crap, or dragons, or faeries, or superheroes, or vampires, etc. ad infinitum!  These books usually include basic art instruction, but why not just teach artists how to draw!  Once the would-be artist gets a handle on drawing, then he can draw all the zombies and supers and dragons he wants!

Whew…  Settling down now.

This is why I’ve never written an art book.

In other news, you can now purchase “Johnny Saturn” issues 1 thru 9 from Graphic.ly via iTunes.  I just got to play with an iPad the other day, and I was very impressed with it—it makes a great comic reading device!

How did motion comics get popular?  They seem pretty much the same format as those terrible 1960’s cartoons featuring Captain America, or the Sub-Mariner, or the like.  In those cartoons, they cut up the original comic pages and then moved the two-dimensional characters around.  Well, modern motion comics aren’t that crude, but are more like movie animatics.  They are neither fish nor fowl, comic nor cartoon.  Marvel’s motion comics have looked pretty impressive, really, for all my complaining.  I’m speaking of the “Spider-Woman” webcomics, and the “Iron Man: Extremis” material I’ve seen.

Honestly, if I had the manpower, I’d produce a “Johnny Saturn” motion comic.  I have the source material, and the software, after all.  I just can’t make motion comics and keep up with the weekly comic work.

OK, enough blathering from me.  You may now return to your scheduled broadcast.