Influences For My Comic Work

I started reading comics some time in the late 1980's, and aside from a short break, I have been interested in them ever since. The art has always been what attracted me to a book, more than the writing. I guess that is to be expected with my interest in drawing always being strong. (I am not saying that good writing isn't important, but a good art team can cover up a lot of warts in a story line, at least in my opinion)

My favorite artists in the comic book world have at one time or another pretty much all worked for Marvel Comics - Jim Lee, Joe Madureira, Andy and Adam Kubert, Todd McFarlane, and J Scott Campbell are probably my six favorite artists. I am sure they are a lot of peoples favorite artist.

I also like to take influence from far lesser known artist. I am a member of DeviantArt - and through DeviantArt I have discovered many, many greta artists that have inspired me to try new techniques as well as collaborate with. Two artists who I have taken great pleasure in coloring line work are JK5-Inks and DevGear - the inking these artist have done has given  me awesome work to color, and has also given me the inspiration to try my hand at inking. I have posted an example of work I have done on both artist line work below.

Over the coming weeks, I will be doing entries about each artist who has influenced my work and what about their work has influenced mine. I will also post about more traditional artist who have inspired my work - such as Larry Elmore, Keith Parknison,  Frank Franzetta and Boris Vallejo.

Pencils by Mike DeBalfo, Inks by JK5-Inks and Colours by Matt James

Pencils by imagine-1207, Inks by DevGear, Colours by Matt James

Inking

Inking is something I am pretty new at - at least new at as so far as actually thinking about it and attempting to do it with any sort competency. I have been guilty of in the past of more or less just tracing my pencils and not considering anything like line weight, or black space etc. I have now started trying to focus a little more on inking and trying to make my images look more complete and professional. I have been inking using my Wacom Tablet and Photoshop, and so far I am fairly happy with my progress and results.

Below I have Batgirl, this took me around 3 hours to ink, so I am trying to get faster and cleaner with my work, but I am seeing definite progress from where I was.

Pencils by Randy Kintz, Inks by Matt James
Batgirl is a trademark of DC Comics

Colouring

I have been working on my skills as a colorist for a while now - it was not something I really picked up in my studies, but more something I started doing self taught after I had finished my studies. Obviously learning color theory at uni helped with the process, but for the most part, I am self taught with my techniques.

My preferred coloring method is photoshop. Mainly because it is forgiving with mistakes - making it easy to go back and clean up after the fact, and it allows me to do some pretty cool special effects. Below, I have two examples of recent work I have done using photoshop that i do not believe I could have achieved with more traditional methods.

The first is Wolverine and the Hulk, the reflection of the hulk and the line drops form Wolverine's drool would have been very difficult, if not impossible to achieve without photoshop (or similar). The other is the Avengers, wight e glows for Thor's lightning and Iron Man's energy glows.

As always I can contacted by my Facebook or DeviantArt pages, and I am available for commissions and requests!

Pencils by David Finch, Inks by jorgecopo, Colours by Matt James

Wolervine and the Hulk are trademarks of Marvel Comics.

Pencils by sjsegovia, Inks by JK5 , Colours by Matt James

The Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America and Thor are all trademarks of Marvel Comics.

Hi and Welcome!

Hi All,

So this is my first post on my new blog. The purpose of this blog is to try and spread my art work around and draw some attention to my primary sites - DeviantArt and Facebook

My main focus is on Comic Book style art, but I also dabble in Tattoo design and Graphic Design too. I have a bachelors degree in Illustration and Graphic Design from James Cook University in Townsville, QLD, Australia.

Feel free to leave comment, please keep it constructive though, ok? Anybody can contact me through my DeviantArt and Facebook accounts. I am available for commissions and when time permits, I am very happy to take requests too! Feel free to drop me a line.

For my first displayed piece of art, Freddy Krueger pencils.

Pencils by Matt James