Among all artists, the following four have influenced my own style perhaps more than any and have been sources of inspiration for my own characters.
The first is Tim Burton-
Tim Burton is my definition of a genius. From his beautiful, delightfully gothic and artistic films to his rough, sketchy and quirky character designs. His style has had a profound effect on my own since I like to put a twist of darkness in all of my illustrations and I feel I was drawn to his artwork from a young age.
Surprisingly he started out at Disney as an animator but was sort of cast off to the side by his superiors since his work was a bit too creepy for the happy and pretty Disney artwork that was being aimed for instead.
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| …I can see why. Can you imagine a Disney song being made about this?! |
This proved to be just what he needed as he now had control over his own work and one of his ideas he came up with was the story of the Nightmare before Christmas. Though he was apparently hardly ever present for the production of the film it was his designs and ideas that gave it such charm in my opinion.
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| The loveable Edward Scissorhands was Tim's own creation |
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| The Red Queen - Alice in Wonderland |
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| Burtonised Harry Potter- things doesn't get much better than that! His style has become so popular that people use it to portray other well known characters . |
Yana Toboso
Yana is the author of the popular manga series Black Butler.
I absolutely love the amount of detail she puts in to each and every panel of her work.
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| Grell |
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| Undertaker |
Here are some rather old sketches of two of my favourite characters. I loved their style so much that I tried to emulate it and it was at this point a couple of years ago when I did these that I was beginning to grasp how to draw decent hair!
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| From left to right; Ciel Phantomhive, William T Spears, Ronald Knox, Grell Sutcliff, Sebastian Michelis |
Takeshi Obata
Takeshi is the illustrator of the immensely popular manga Death Note.
Unlike most manga, Takeshi's doesn't have overly exaggerated features such as massive sparkly eyes that are drawn on women. The style is much more sophisticated and realistic which fits with the semi-realism of the storyline despite it having shinigamis (death gods) and a notebook that kills people!
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| Light and Ryuk |
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| Mello, Near, Light, Ryuk and Misa |
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| Ryuk, Light and Rem |
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| Mello |
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| Mello |
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| A quick painting I did of Mello |
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| L Lawliet |
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| An old sketch I did of L (I like to think I've improved!!) |
Tite Kubo
Kubo is the author of another one of my favourite manga/animes - one of the most popular series of all time.
His artwork is unique but I admire most his diversity in his character design and his ability to execute complicated plot lines through his action packed panels- though he seems to be leaving his backgrounds rather stark of late!
Above all others it is Tite Kubo who wins the award of having the biggest influence over my own artwork. It is through trying to replicate this style and incorporate aspects of it into my own that I have become more familiar with anatomy as well as drawing manga eyes and hair.
Here are two paintings i'm working on of one of my favourite Bleach characters.
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