Artists I Like: Matthew Adams

Another great one.

Matthew Adams is an artist I first encountered in the original Yoon Suin (a wonderful randomly-generated setting for OSR games).

Adams' art is wonderfully quirky and weird. It's also quick, messy, and pure. I know he loves to play around with MS Paint, doing pixel art. Who does that? It's a whole thing, I know. His pixel sketches are really great and full of texture and suggestion. I think that's what I like most about his work... the suggestion of something. He's painting ideas without giving them final form. I love that. Looking at one of his drawings, it appears there's a lot more to it. But zooming in only reveals there isn't more to it. It's an illusion. But that's the magic, isn't it?

This was a nuclear bomb in my head.

 

Saturday Morning Art Rumble 5

Punch kick PUNCH KICK

Opening my drawing and pulling out my giant metal d3000... GO!

Oh this week's winner is easy. That robot soldier, who appears as the Infantry Bot in Cozmic Metal Heads, is a fave of mine. I love that guy. Rock on, soldier.

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Artists I Like: Jaimie Hernandez

Yet another great artist I really like. And this one isn't trivial... Jaimie Hernandez is a giant of comics, a trend setter, a legend.

Now, I didn't really read Love & Rockets. I knew of it, but didn't see it or have access to it back in the day. What I did have is the trade paperback of Eros Comics' Birdland by Gilbert Hernandez... but that's for a different post.

Jaimie is amazing. How can one artist do so much with so few lines? A shadow here, a bold line there, and done. Hell, many of his faces are just like 2 or 3 lines. It's magic.

Jaimie's representations of various body types is truly inspiring. I remember seeing these comics back in the day, but not reading them, and was super inspired by this fact. No two characters look the same. Everyone has a vibe and a style that feels authentic. The bodies feel like they are real.

This grounding is present for all the art, including backgrounds. Reading a page of his work, you get a strong sense of place. You are never lost or wondering what the panels are doing (unless that is the goal). And his consistency across panels and pages is unparalleled.

I think if we can ever use the phrase "a comics genius", we can use it for Jaimie Hernandez.

This really is the good shit.

 

Saturday Morning Art Rumble 4

Roll for initiative!

Ok... selecting 5 drawings at random to see which one holds this week's crown... GO!

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For Goodman Games. ♥♥

This week was really hard! I got 3 results that I rated 4 stars. How the hell did that happen?

Well, that space port drawing is slated to be the cover for my sci-fantasy RPG ZSF, if I ever manage to finish it. I love that drawing. Then there's the lovely nude space girl who I also love. And then there's the Rat Queen map for Black Pudding... which I also love. How do resolve this??

d20 vs. d20 vs. d20. GO.

Space Port gets 13, Space Booty gets 14, Rat Queen gets 16.

Ok. Does Space Booty get a Charisma bonus? arguably, fuck yes. +3. But I find that if I go that route I'll be giving all the pin-up art a boost. It's just not fair, is it?

No mods. Raw dice rolls. This week's winner is Rat Queen!

Artists I Like: Steve Mannion

Yet another in this series.

I don't know much about Steve Mannion but I know what I like when I see it and as soon as I laid eyes on his work I liked it. Not much to say here other than this aesthetic scratches my itch for an old school pin-up art style reminiscent of classic Frazetta and Bisley at the same time. He's an exceptional artist capable of capturing energy and anatomy and form with classic old school inking.

In a word, Steve Mannion's art is FUN. We need fun. Bring it on.

 

Saturday Morning Art Rumble 3

FIGHT!

Rolling 1d3000+ five times... and the eyes have it.

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From Hole in the Oak. ♥♥

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Detail from Troika! sheet I drew in Mexico. ♥♥♥

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Old and New

Here's a really old drawing from the late 90s. Character name is Lutura and I have no memory of her at all. She was either a D&D character or a comic script character who never went anywhere.

I have a bunch of these old drawings that represent me kind of floundering in my 20s, not really hitting my vibe yet. This drawing is OK, but not something I love. I wasn't in love with art at that time. I wasn't in love with much of anything at that time. I was fishing around for inspiration and not finding it. I was barely even drawing, basically never gaming, and not really interacting with people much. This was before I even owned a computer so I wasn't online yet, though I did have a Yahoo email address and went to the public library once a month to check it. Let that sink in, you folks under a certain age.

 A couple of years later I would go through a pretty shitty depression and actually give up on art and game design for a short time. I remember entering 2000 in that way. I spent months only doodling and writing in a journal and thinking maybe I'd try my hand at writing fiction (hint: that went nowhere).

Then, sometime around 2001-2002, I had a break. I had a moment. I had an inspiration. Something changed. Part of it was the internet. I connected with people online and found places where I could show my work. It was the boost of having people react to it that drove me to be creative again.

Here's one of the first drawings I did at that time when I felt the light bulb go off. The date on the JPG file says 2002, but I'm not sure when I drew it. Probably 2002.

Artists I Like: Hank Van Brunt

The artists series continues...

Hank Van Brunt is to comics and art what butter knives are to peanut butter.

Hank's work is weird in that when I started seeing it on Instagram, I thought there was a comic book. Almost everything he posts appears to be part of a comic book. But these are really just scenes and moments in a greater narrative that is hinted at but never actually revealed. A single image with a single caption tells a POTENTIAL story. Since I've always been greatly attracted to potentialities, I'm greatly attracted to Hank's creations.

Most of his work centers on the motley crew of the Bad George, a space ship. The main characters are Gopy, Hank (a self-insert?), Djenny, Gresmatch, Aluzza, and Isambard. There's also Princess Aspartame as well as a bunch other wild ass characters.

I like how Hank just kind of draws things, adds a bit of narrative to it, and rolls on to something else. It feels like we're just catching glimpses of a much bigger story.

His art is lovely. It appears to be drawing completely digitally and I think he take full advantage of the digital canvas to make his colors pop. Did I mention this guy can draw the BEST sci-fi ships and vehicles and devices? I want you to look at some of these images closely and notice the little details. Has anyone drawn better twisted phone cords in the history of art?