Influence Spotlight: Jim Lee

This will be a regular feature on my page where I will talk about influences on my techniques and styles. Hopefully I can introduce you to new artists, or give you a different way to look at artists you already know.

First cab off the rank is going to be Jim Lee. The reason I will go with Jim Lee up first is he is the reason I got interested in, and stayed interested in comic books. I started reading comics around the time Jim was working on the Uncanny X-Men. I eagerly purchased the “new” X-Men when he released it, and have been heavily invested in his work ever since.

My favourite piece of his work to date (as a penciler) is Batman Hush – the artwork in that series was amazing, and was pretty much the first time I really read DC comics.  It is amazing to look back at how much Jim Lee developed as an artist between his early work on the Punisher War Journal through to his more recent stuff. I was not much of a fan of Jim’s work in the Punisher series, but looking back now, I can see where he current style has developed from.

Jim Lee has been criticized in the past for having no real artitst depth to his art, almost saying his work is plastic and generic. I disagree, I do think his style is perfectly suited for the spandex and cape brigade or Marvel and DC comics, but I also don’t have a problem with that. He excels at drawing action and movement, and that is exactly what draw people into most comics, it is also the element of his style that I would dearly love to master.

Anyways, below are some amazing pieces from Jim Lee and also some links to Jim Lee related pages, so you can check out some of his eye candy.

Learn about the man himself here -> Wiki 

Check out some of his amazing art here -> DeviantArt
See a complete database of comics he has been involved in here -> Comics DB

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