Ink Slinger Spotlight: 8BitMaximo

[sempaimiles]

Originally published at RKdia Comics. You can comment here or there.

Let’s take a look at the work of a guy I really look up to today; Maximo V. Lorenzo.



Max is a Kubie, graduating from the Joe Kubert School in 2006 after winning a placement for writing and illustrating “Hellbender” for Tokyopop’s Rising Stars of Manga Issue 4 competition in 2004. Upon exiting he found himself working on Tokyopop’s property, Bombos Versus Everything, a 182-page graphic novel of the shonen genre, originally written by Andy Helms. Since that time he has worked a myriad of freelance jobs and anthology pieces including work in Popgun and the Ghostbusters comic anthology. After the shut-down of Zuda his contest winning original comic One-Hit Knockout (OHKO) has found a home at his Deviant Art page, where he has a large following.



Max LOVES Shonen Manga, video games, and comics. His style is a unique fusion of influences from some of the greatest in Japan (Kishimoto, Go Nagai, Takahashi, and Ishinomori,) games (Mega Man, the Mother Series, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokemon even,) and American Comics (McCay, Frazzato, Keith.) He showcases a distinctly manga-influenced styling to his action and character designs, but employs some of the best inking techniques I’ve seen, learned from the Kubert School. He is really not afraid to throw it around and spot really heavy blacks, combined with dot-grains, beta flares and many other manga-stylings.



Story wise, he is no doubt gearing his current project, OHKO, to be a full-fledged Shonen manga. The story follows Surge a young man with a keen sense of adventure and big plans! His rival is a bully named William, a brute with a stolen Power-glove Surge struggles to get back. There are people in the shadows watching, clearly interested in what they are fighting over.



OHKO is only just begining. To date he has released only 13 or so pages of content. ZUDA closing up shop sort of put paid to his immediate plans for the series, but he is now planning to release the work publicly after completing 2-22 page chapters. In the mean time he’s always got some piece of fan art, an illustration for anthologies or gallery shows, and general awesomeness churning out to keep our palettes very tempted. He also is an accomplished sprite artist, drawing on that 8bit influence from his childhood to craft elaborate illustrations pixel by pixel! Max is the go-to artist for The Bad Dudes music group, and to this point has created art for nearly every album and EP they have released. (Until now, that is, as I am creating the art for the next Bad Dudes project: A joint venture with OCRemix called Heroes Vs. Villains!)



In short, he’s accomplished much in a very short amount of time and is definitely a rising star. I look up to his dedication to craft, his work ethic and his desire to follow his heart and draw exactly what he wants to draw. He may go for long periods of releative quiet, but you know when he does post something new, it’s going to be worth waiting for!



Follow Max on Twitter!

-RD

All art is © 2010 Maximo V. Lorenzo