artists

Joe madureira

Most famous for his work within marvel comics Joe designs and creates comic style art with mostly bold and defined colour and line. Personally I chose this artist because of his work within the darksiders series and the influence he has had on the outcome of the games, the darksiders games are dark post-apocalyptic, fantasy open-world games in which the player controls either the horsemen war or death depending on the game. His style within this series consists mostly of what you’d expect from such a series with characters designed out of proportion to demonstrate their inhuman nature and add greater identity to each character with war being designed to be significantly more built than the other characters and death to have a far more ‘feral’ appearance as joe would describe with a more gaunt frame and clawed hands. 

Joe began his career as an intern at the age of 16 within marvel comics with his work taking great inspiration from that of Arthur Addams, another comic artist who works for the marvel studios. Later in his career he began incorporating styles from different cultures such as that found in manga.

Most of his earlier work is pencilling and sketches that are done within the first stages of comic and concept art.

I have always admired the art of Joe madureira, ever since I first picked up my copy of darksiders 2, I loved the art so much I went and brought the concept art book so that I could see the previous designs and thought processes that went into every detail of the game and the characters within it, these designs inspired me to take and pen and create something monstrous and mix aspects from several forms together to create something new, or even include behavioural expression, what does the character say to you? how does its pose and expression signify intention? there's so much more to designing a character than how they look, its in where they are and what they are doing, everything can give context right down to the tones used.

in addition to this artist also highlighted the importance of planning and discussing, as your intentions may not match that of others and some designs may cause indecision. therefore it can be useful to line up  different designs and have others review what they like and dislike about different designs.

Chuck Lukacs

Best known for his work in collaboration with wizards of the coast in franchises such as magic the gathering and D&D.

Use of colour, shading, defined style

Chucks art is different from the other artist combining the bold lines and tones of comic art with the detail and fragility of concept art, this style is very recognisable within his work and very eye catching.

Digital medium is the most common means of creating art that he uses, starting from sketches and building up on them in black and white before adding colour. Shading an image in black and white allows room for errors before colouring in addition to making it easier to alter anything that may be reviewed later, this is visible in the ‘tiefling lich’ piece as the outfit has been changed slightly and the grubs removed as chuck talks about how this piece was a little bit of him going wild and making the scene as nightmarish as possible but reining himself in to comply with the task that has been set before him.

I found this artist through the art he has done for the D&D tarroka deck for the ‘curse of Strahd’ module in which his black and white paintings decorate the face and back of 52 cards ranging from the paladin to the dark lord, each holding different values and suits.

colour is a large part of this artists style often featuring split complementary colours to add a surreal impact to his art.

http://lightpusher.blogspot.co.uk/ 

mike mignola

mike mignola has always been one of my favourite artists within comics and graphic novels, most famous for illustrating and writing the hellboy series and the style in which they are drawn using very heavy shadows and stylised form. working for dark horse comics the 57 year old has also had a hand in concept art and co-scripting with his style being described as "German expressionism meets Jack Kirby".

as comic artists most commonly focus on exaggerating fuetures based on current standards or power and beauty such as heavily exaggerating muscular structures and then using heavy shadow and solid colours to define this, while mignola sticks to these tropes he utilises them in a completely diferent way, using darker tones and heavy shadow to create almost a moody atmosphere that is still very eye catching. this use of colour and tone is especially successful in the hellboy series with often the brightest subject being hellboy himself being bright red in colour. in addition to the use of colour and tone the style in which he also uses is unique within comic culture and immediately recognisable often with empty eyes and more angular features, his style is hard to describe so someone who has not seen it before

the covers of the hellboy series themselves are not a place someone would want to find themselves, surrounded by terrifying or macabre scenes shrouded in dark tones, framing the brighter form of hellboy.

I have chosen mike mignola as one of my artists because of his use of style and colour, and narrative he challenges the typical representation of making the most inspirational and beautiful hero out there instead using a sarcastic half demon to save the day with a moody style and exaggerated forms.  

marguerite sauvage 

during my trip to new York I visited the midtown comics store, a huge two story comic and memorabilia store filled with all styles, genres, and stories, from in which I found the 'wicked and divine' comic from the $1 bin, this cover stood out from many of the others, most of the works are older comics with the typical bold style, however this piece was bold but in a way that appealed to me significantly more. it features bold mix of tone and form that works incredibly well considering how these aspects typically aren't used together with each other. 

the most notable aspect of her work is the use of gradient and darker tones to create shade rather than solid black shadows like within most comic artists, this when combined with the more solid and neutral background tones brings to character to the forefront of the image, this was an inspiration for me as colours and shading are something I find difficult as I often find myself lost in considering what colours to use and how to go about creating shadows without making the image blocky in a sense in terms of colour. marguerite's work seems to have so life and vibrancy it was impossible not to pick up her art 

she's worked for vertigo comics after a career within other organiations such as Ubisoft as a freelance concept artist for games and animation as well as working as art director and designer for an animated series cultural quest with mister otter, giving her a lot of experience within the artistic field in which she found and developed her bold and unique style, allowing her to experiment with even more abstract concepts and colours. however other than this there is not all that much information on her, as this is what she states on her art station page.

Brittany l Williams

with a style based on simplicity and impact she uses

I found her work from reading an issue of the hellcat series, her style was simplistic but still very eye catching, for example this cover is inviting and a welcome break from the intensity of most over comics, in that moment I truly appreciated simplicity and how it can bring so much life with so little. 

her works are often fun and colourful using bright colours without the harsh tones that are often used within comic art, the characters she illustrates are often stylised to have a cuter appearance, like the work of marguerite sauvage her work stood out so much from the rest I had buy it. I found this comic in the $1 bin at the midtown comics store, it felt so much warmer than the other comics which greatly seemed to counter the title, in most circumstances this seems like a bad idea to create a title and image that seemingly do not match, however not in this case as I was intrigued by the contrast.

the diversity of character is very visible within this work with different ages, nationalities and gender, all in a friendly environment welcoming all readers to this comic despite the simplicity of the art style. considering the character chaos within this cover it is framed well enough to still highlight the main character in the centre.