Inspirations: Comics

Incase you couldn't tell by all the chibi drawings I've done, comics play a big part in my life. The stories have kept me sane, the artwork has kept stunned and both combined have always inspired me.

The Amazing Spider-Man #568

 I have been reading comics for as long as I can remember and I've never got sick of them. When I was a kid I bought them just for the images and drool over how good they were as I never really cared for the stories. That soon changed though after I was given a Spider-Man annual featuring the story "The Sins of My Father". I started reading it as it featured the Hobgoblin and I was curious about who this evil looking villian actually was. As it featured the Osborns, Mary-Jane and various other key elements in the Spider-Man universe it made me go back and actually read the stories. So for my family and friends you find it annoying when I start reading and become antisocial, you can blame my nan for buying me the 1994 Spider-Man annual.

Most of my Chibis.

Random Batman sketch.

I started my collection 'Sonic the Hedgehog' comics (don't judge), but soon I developed some sense I started buying Spider-Man (Marvel) and Batman (DC) comics. They originally were the only characters that had any appeal to me, which looking back at it seems odd as you couldn't get two more different characters. One is a teenager with the powers of a spider who sets out to use them with responsiblity and looking to inspire others, is shy and with practically no social life in the beginning (think I just figured out why I was drawn to him). While the other is a dark, disturbing character who is out to strike fear to the corrupt and unlawful in the world.

Hobgoblin Chibi

McFarlane's Spider-Man #1 cover. (Second printing black and gold edition)

Looking at my collection of old stuff, I seemed to have been drawn to Todd McFarlane's work a lot when I was younger, with my first encounter being the cover above which is still to this day my favourate comicbook cover of all time. McFarlane was also one of the people who created Spawn (Dark Horse), which I fell in love with when I was in my teens. The story, the way it's drawn and the characters are so screwed up that I do wonder what they were on when they created it. I had never seen anything like it before and after a few reads I was hooked.

Another random Batman drawing.

This is actually a tattoo design I did.

Comics have always given me fantastic ideas over the years. And with artists and writers pushing the bounderies of what can be done, I'm sure they will keep inspiring me for many years to come.

Using Instagram A Bit Too Much

Instagram is an app you can download for the iPhone and I've only got into using it recently. Most of the people I know use it and I can see why. It is a quick and easy way to spice up a bland picture a little bit (like most of the examples below) and makes it incredibly easy to share on various social media sites, as well as their own site. Thing is it's so easy that I find myself using it more then playing about with pictures on Photoshop, which can't really be good.  

I mean one of the great things about doing creative stuff in any media is that satisfied feeling you get when you look at the finished product and know your blood, sweat and tears (in my case a lot of swearing) went into it. Learning and practicing the craft then putting the skills into action is one of the most gratifying things you can experience in my opinion, be it drawing, writing, music, photography and so on. Instagram and other apps like it diminish that somewhat as not only is it easy to use, but easy to finish a picture in under a minute, so you're banging out picture after picture after picture. Back in the day making pictures look better then they actually are took real skill, but now it just takes two clicks and you're done. 

Do you think I'm being too harsh? Incidently I'm not saying Intagram is an awful program, after all I am using it. I just think that I would of appreciated stuff like this a lot more 4 years ago as it took a lot of time and effort to create these effects.