Aagh meme what
Finally filled out that art influence meme that made its rounds a few years ago, because why not? If you've been following my LJ for a while, very little of this will come as a surprise, but sometimes I think it's nice to try to articulate your feelings on why you love the things you love, don't you? Numbers show approximate chronological order I discovered said influence.
1. L. Frank Baum/John R. Neill. I grew up with the Oz books, and always loved them for the magical adventures, fierce lady heroes, sarcastic animal sidekicks, and yes, Neill’s illustrations. His drawings have so much personality, spanning the entire range of graceful to goofy. His flowing, floaty linework is perfect for pretty girls, cartoony enough to make all the strange creatures and talking animals seem perfectly believable, and solid enough for scenes of action, humor, and drama, sometimes all at once.
2. Bill Peet. The first author I can remember trying to get my hands on as many of his books as possible almost entirely for his art style. The Whingdingdilly was my first and favorite-I loved stories about dogs all through elementary school, and in first grade I remember trying to copy the drawings of Scamp walking through the forest because I loved how much mood they had. These days, I really admire Bill for his story work at Disney, his sense of shape and composition, the controlled chaos of his linework, and how, well, animated his drawings are.
3. Sailor Moon. Like a ton of kids growing up in the nineties, Sailor Moon was my gateway drug to a world filled with big eyes, ridiculous hair, pretty boys, transformation sequences, and complex characters. As you can tell, I fell for it, and fell for it HARD. These days, I’ve been enjoying the manga quite a bit. I would cite Naoko Takeuchi herself as one of my major inspirations for her cute girls and gorgeous illustrations, but the truth is that without the anime I never would have gone down the path that led me there in the first place, so it will always have that special place of honor in my heart <3
4. Maxfield Parrish. Dude makes me want to go exploring, and discover in real life the sorts of places he paints. His landscapes are so grand and majestic, and the colors so vivid and atmospheric. If my superpower was the ability to jump into paintings, I would go into any number of his works, build a house, and spend my retirement living just off-frame.
5. Steve Purcell. His style is just so darn appealing to me. I love the shapes he uses and how lively and cartoony everything is-it looks like it was just plain fun to draw. Plus all the details he puts into panels and splash pages adds up to a ton of eye candy that I never get tired looking at.
6. The Dini/Timm DCAU. The definitive Batman, in my eyes. Great character designs, great action, great mood, great asthetic. Bruce Timm’s shapes are so sleek and solid and powerful-plus, his girls are all really sexy. Anytime I draw the human body, I’m probably trying to channel him to one degree or another.
7. Rumiko Takahashi. Ranma ½ was the first manga I ever read and the one I’ve had the most exposure to, but I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve seen of Urusei Yatsura as well. I want to call her work “deceptively simple,” only because she makes everything- linework, watercolors, scenery, expressions, comedic timing, character-based plotlines, complex contortions of the human body, over-the-top action scenes -- look absolutely effortless. She is definitely my number-one inspiration when it comes to telling stories through comics, and the versatility she infuses her style with is something I aspire to pretty much every time I sit down to draw.
8. Digimon. Digimon is on here less for art style (although it’s influenced me there as well), and more because it’s the franchise that has most consistently inspired me to contribute to a fandom, whether art, fic, or some other form of fannish devotion. So thank you, Digimon, for being such a fun universe to play around in, and providing such a constant driving force around which I try to improve my creative output.
9. Medabots. Medabots was a show about battling robots that didn’t take itself seriously, and it showed in the art style. Extremely fast and loose linework, tons of squash and stretch, delightfully wonky character designs, it was so much fun to watch. It’s one of my major inspirations for conveying motion, with the added bonus of showing that “fun” does necessarily mean “pretty” (a lesson I need to apply more often).
10. Red-figure vase painting. I started looking at vases sometime in college because I’m a complete nerd about Greek mythology, but I didn’t start trying to learn from them until after I graduated. Red-figure vases became the dominant style after black-figure, around the 6th century BCE, and that combined with the method (the subject matter is blocked out in unpainted clay, and glaze is used to fill in the background and details) meant that depictions in the red-figure style were generally more complex than their predecessors. My favorite examples demonstrate some fairly realistic musculature, well-rendered clothing, and some delightful expressions, despite the limitations of the medium. All of it really makes me appreciate the value of a well-placed line, and strive for my own variation of that realistic-but-stylized quality.
11. Tintin. This one is really recent, past few months, actually. I definitely admire Herge’s sense of composition, and the way his panels read clearly despite the fact that all lines have equal weight. He draws some really action-packed /exciting/funny sequences, beautifully detailed vehicles, and appealing people and animals. Looking at them automatically makes me want to get better at drawing all those things.
Honorable mentions (not pictured): Dancing, Alphonse Mucha, Monkey Punch, Toshihiro Ono, Milt Kahl.