This guy is the reason I got into comics in the first place. After watching the film adaptation of his series of graphic novels, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, I decided to read the books and my love of comics was born! This was also where I started to consider drawing comics myself - I'd never really read them much as a kid but with my love of drawing and writing stories, combining them seemed like the perfect fit.
He's also what kept me on the path to and Illustration degree, as opposed to the many other creative (and some non-creative) subjects I was considering for a degree. His work reminds me of my own love of drawing, and I love his style of drawing characters. He's influenced a lot by manga, anime and video games, and I'm influenced by him.
I love the way he draws people in his comics, as opposed to other artists I like, like Becky Cloonan, who take a more realistic approach to graphic novel illustration. He reduces people to simple forms and then exaggerates certain aspects of figures, like larger heads and eyes. I love this kinda cute style, with which you can write energetic stories to go with.
His sketchbooks are also mesmerising - I follow him on Instagram and Snapchat:
His proficiency with pens whilst colouring astounds me. He has a great grasp on tone, colour and light. I love the textures he incorporates into his characters, like pens slightly running out or not perfectly blocked within the lines. he also uses coloured pens to create folds within fabric or textures and tones in fabric like on the tights.
His line work as well is fairly 'messy' - I used to think (when I was young and naive) that his lines were perfect because they appeared that way in the comics, at the size they were reduced to. Now that I'm older and wiser (hopefully), I recognise that he actually draws a lot larger and reduces the images down to the comic size. This is something I need to get better at doing, as I still find myself drawing quite small and expecting my lines to be amazing-looking.
I should buy a larger (A3) sketchbook and spend more time practising drawing things larger and not wasting so much time on details when they're tiny.
You can also tell from his work that he's spent a lot of time observing people, poses, body shape and light etc. I definitely need to start doing more of this, just drawing ALL THE TIME
He also has proficiency with Photoshop - digital colouring and adding textures. Which is something I need to push myself to do more of! I have a graphics tablet but I'm kinda scared to use it. I'm scared of failure, but I really need to take more risks and spend more time just DRAWING and not being afraid, even if it goes wrong. I have definitely got better at king this - drawing straight on to paper with pen and drawing multiples of things instead of just rubbing it out if it goes wrong.
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