influences
this is going to sound pretty pathetic, but unfortunately my three main stylistic influences are Disney cartoons (specifically Aladdin), American comic books (my favorites being anything Batman or Nightwing related), and Japanese comic books/manga (my favorites being too numerous to count, but most of them are in the shoujo realm).
i've tried to repress my Disney roots as best i can, but once in a while they come out in faces or eyes. that's mozenrath up there (my favorite Disney character ever) and you can probably see a similarity between him and Marc (usually thought people say that Marc looks a lot like Aladdin, which is correct as I created Marc when I had a kiddie-crush on Aladdin =P I haven't changed the character design much in 10ish years!) i think the Disney roots become especially apparent when i draw simplified noses.
Manga have definitely influenced body and facial language of my characters, as well as how i shade hair (i love the shoujo style of hair highlighting, time consuming as it is). American comic books taught me how to convey motion in very dramatic ways, so when i do draw my characters in fighting poses or what not (which i usually don't show on the web) i often think back to my days of Spiderman or Nightwing fandom and imagine the characters leaping across canyons between buildings and such.
i also probably should mention that i'm greek orthodox and grew up surrounded by byzantine iconography -- the method of highly stylized and allegorical body language has influenced me somewhat. (here's a really crappy example that resembles a giant red scribble. it's a really quick ink sketch of phantom being pulled from the gallows, and not to worry, he's not dead. but the body language there subconsciously came out very much like icons of the crucifixion i'm used to seeing. )
this is going to sound pretty pathetic, but unfortunately my three main stylistic influences are Disney cartoons (specifically Aladdin), American comic books (my favorites being anything Batman or Nightwing related), and Japanese comic books/manga (my favorites being too numerous to count, but most of them are in the shoujo realm).
i've tried to repress my Disney roots as best i can, but once in a while they come out in faces or eyes. that's mozenrath up there (my favorite Disney character ever) and you can probably see a similarity between him and Marc (usually thought people say that Marc looks a lot like Aladdin, which is correct as I created Marc when I had a kiddie-crush on Aladdin =P I haven't changed the character design much in 10ish years!) i think the Disney roots become especially apparent when i draw simplified noses.
Manga have definitely influenced body and facial language of my characters, as well as how i shade hair (i love the shoujo style of hair highlighting, time consuming as it is). American comic books taught me how to convey motion in very dramatic ways, so when i do draw my characters in fighting poses or what not (which i usually don't show on the web) i often think back to my days of Spiderman or Nightwing fandom and imagine the characters leaping across canyons between buildings and such.
i also probably should mention that i'm greek orthodox and grew up surrounded by byzantine iconography -- the method of highly stylized and allegorical body language has influenced me somewhat. (here's a really crappy example that resembles a giant red scribble. it's a really quick ink sketch of phantom being pulled from the gallows, and not to worry, he's not dead. but the body language there subconsciously came out very much like icons of the crucifixion i'm used to seeing. )
